Birches

By James Arthur Holt

So lightly buds stiffen
under rasp and tooth and bark.
The full wordy breath
of March gusting, here ….

they sway,
arc away,

The swollen promises of summer,
such furtive hands, child-like,
boundless and upstreaming
in their fumbling, falling …

Peel back the young,
taut, bone-white bark
for the salmon-pink flesh
waiting …

Under the winking, graying stone-
blue gaze of sky,
open, judgeless, unbridled …

their leaves about.

—
I wrote this in Hamilton, Ontario, Jan. 3, 1992.