Birch Sings of Summer
Oh you are uninhibited, you
A naughty flirt—yet totally honest, straight, rooted, dancing the airs of a cerulean sky
Open heartshaped cascades of leaf and bright sun-yellow shimmer
yourself shaking on the breeze
Upward-reaching, bronze, copper, silver layers,
vermeil folios, satin petticoats of bark
You’re a stripper, a flapper, a ruffled, brilliant bride
A barred owl, fluffed wings resting
Lower trunk naked, tawny, peeled by time, silk-smooth
If I could be anything, do anything
Let me trade my skin for yours
My blood for yours
My transience and wandering,
even the blissful epiphanies of the human dream would I give
For your steadfastness, your subtle motions and exhalations
The arias of air on fragrant wood,
Of shifting sparkling peridot lights
of late, late summer.
Oh you are uninhibited, you
A naughty flirt—yet totally honest, straight, rooted, dancing the airs of a cerulean sky
Open heartshaped cascades of leaf and bright sun-yellow shimmer
yourself shaking on the breeze
Upward-reaching, bronze, copper, silver layers,
vermeil folios, satin petticoats of bark
You’re a stripper, a flapper, a ruffled, brilliant bride
A barred owl, fluffed wings resting
Lower trunk naked, tawny, peeled by time, silk-smooth
If I could be anything, do anything
Let me trade my skin for yours
My blood for yours
My transience and wandering,
even the blissful epiphanies of the human dream would I give
For your steadfastness, your subtle motions and exhalations
The arias of air on fragrant wood,
Of shifting sparkling peridot lights
of late, late summer.