It was still dark in Piccadilly as I walked down to find out how our all night opening of Ai Weiwei had gone. It was apparently busy till 2 o’clock in the morning, then an opera singer performed Elgar’s Sea Pictures at 3, 4 and 5 o’clock, whilst people lay down and had a mystical experience under the chandelier in the Central Hall. The trees will go on Monday:-
It may be my last glimpse of the installation:-
There were dancers in the courtyard at dawn:-
It closes at 6 tomorrow (Sunday) and is open again all night tonight.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
What a brilliant year it has been for Burlington House’s Courtyard, with Conrad Shawcross and Ai Weiwei both bringing a forest of trees !
Yes, the trees look more wonderful as they prepare for their departure. Charles
Out of the Courtyard cobbles and paving
have sprung these copses of trees.
Summer branches of steel,
Autumn trunks of wood,
stretching up to Reynolds, looking down
on Shawcross and on Ai Wei Wei.
They lead a Discourse
once more, as he intended.
Trees and not trees, steel and dead wood.
False and true. Both have new life.
No leaves, no dappled light,
no cloak, no canopy.
They are open to the sky.
Church bells echo, birds fly round.
England stretches to China.
Pruned and nurtured, these trees survive :
fruit and blossom, image and idea.
Roots in the past, fruit in the future.
The Discourses live on : echoing, flying,
out of the Courtyard, into these trees.
Bravo ! Charles