23 November 2023 (their long)

their long pale bodies

bending over the lake

winter birches

*

Happy Thanksgiving!

13 March 2022 (birch)

bent birches . . .

a strip of open water

links the lake islands

1 February 2020 (birches)

winter lake

a birch stand that wasn’t there

when I was a kid

October 23: Glow

Dusk was falling as I was leaving work tonight--the sky above still deep blue streaked with thin clouds, but the woods around me all dark except for the windows of houses across the river...

Hazy half moon.
Birch trunks glowing,
and beyond, one window.

March 2: Birch bark

There's a white birch on the edge of our parking lot, visible from the kitchen window if you peer through the hanging bird feeder. I notice that natural trunk growth--or perhaps the ravages of winter--has caused some of the bark to peel off in long, curled strips that look like small parchment scrolls or something you'd find tucked inside a fortune cookie. This tree often provides a perch for chickadees, who peck open sunflower seeds on its branches or wait there for a turn at the feeder. A bird might notice the peeling bark as a potential hiding place for insects to glean. My thought, as I paused in the driveway this morning to listen to the chickadees belting out their spring courtship songs, was that these slips of birch paper were like little love notes to the birds--billets-doux from the tree to the chickadees.

Birch bark scroll flapping--
a love note unfurled by wind,
read by chickadees.

January 30: Birch in the headlights

As I drove away from my office tonight, having just been dazzled by the vision of the waxing moon, Jupiter, and Venus all crowded together big and bright in the western sky, the sweep of my headlights briefly caught a young birch tree. As this many-trunked little tree loomed out of the dark before me, I was brought instantly back to earth. The tree looked like a stark white witch's hand with long, grasping fingers reaching up into the dark sky, the planet-riddled night.

White birch on dark night--
cold hand reaching for the stars,
and the cold moon too.

September 15: White Birches

Sometimes some ordinary thing catches my eye and suddenly stands out like it never did before. This evening as I left the office, grey rain clouds loomed behind the trees. But when I looked up to assess the likelihood of rain, I was instantly struck with the whiteness of the birch trunks before me. A small clump of White Birches loomed over the driveway against a dull backdrop of storm clouds. Something about the light, or maybe the contrast with the dirty-looking sky, made the birchbark glow with a pure white you don't normally see in nature. Most of the birches around the office and my house are Grey Birches, which are skinnier, more scraggly, and with less "clean" bark. These tall, healthy White Birches looked as if they were wrapped with paper, they were that white. Even my allergy-hazed eyes, through which I've been squinting at my computer screen all day with some difficulty, could register their very visible beauty. What, besides woodpeckers, might scribble on that paper?

Almost a mirage--
such straight, white birches glowing
against dark storm clouds.

I feel the impulse
to get out my crayons and
color that white bark.

March 12: Birches

While I have a birch tree or two in my backyard, this entry was not inspired by any birch I've seen today. Today is my friend Shannon's birthday. (Happy birthday, Shan!) We've known each other since high school, and in thinking about her today, I was reminded of some of the antics we shared more than 25 years ago. We would cruise around listening to the Grateful Dead (American Beauty) or Bob Dylan (Freewheelin' Dylan) really loud. When a song came on that we particularly liked, say, "Box of Rain," she'd enthusiastically honk the horn a few times. And when the music wasn't blasting, we'd share those deep conversations you only have as a teenager, about music and art and places we wanted to visit in the world. Shannon was daring and creative in ways that I was not; she inspired me with her rebellious independence.

We were (and are) admirers of the artist Neil Welliver, a nationally known painter who lived in Lincolnville. Shannon's parents owned a beautiful print of his that I coveted depicting the night sky over Pitcher Pond. As the next best thing, I owned a big poster of his painting Birches, which I loved because it so perfectly captured the light and beauty of the local woods. That image followed me to college and, until a few years ago, hung on my office wall. Sometimes when Shannon and I were driving around, we would come across a scene of wintry birches like that on my poster, and she would honk the horn. For my "senior gift" before high school graduation, I was given a laminated copy of the Robert Frost poem "Birches." I'm sure Shannon was behind that. We reconnected as friends years after high school, and she still possesses that same spontaneous, contagious sense of unselfconscious joy. And she still inspires me.

Friends then and friends now.
Birches make me think of you,
recall youth's freedoms.