"birches" poems
The evening breeze sings the forgotten songs
Of ghosts of nymphs 'tween silver birches there.
And beams of moonlight fall on grassy lawns:
A pearly cloak e'erywhere the eye sees fair.
So many gentle dawns took care to kiss
Along the flowered, verdant forest floor.
In this blessed land so filled with matchless bliss,
Upon golden and rose-pink blossoms which it wore.
Every visitor that stumbles here
Stops to see the flowers near,
And stoops to pick some strawberries
In the meadows, for their families.
Jul 20, 2014
Jul 20, 2014 at 1:18 AM UTC
It is December in Wicklow:
Alders dripping, birches
Inheriting the last light,
The ash tree cold to look at.
A comet that was lost
Should be visible at sunset,
Those million tons of light
Like a glimmer of haws and rose-hips,
And I sometimes see a falling star.
If I could come on meteorite!
Instead I walk through damp leaves,
Husks, the spent flukes of autumn,
Imagining a hero
On some muddy compound,
His gift like a slingstone
Whirled for the desperate.
How did I end up like this?
I often think of my friends'
Beautiful prismatic counselling
And the anvil brains of some who hate me
As I sit weighing and weighing
My responsible tristia.
For what? For the ear? For the people?
For what is said behind-backs?
Rain comes down through the alders,
Its low conductive voices
Mutter about let-downs and erosions
And yet each drop recalls
The diamond absolutes.
I am neither internee nor informer;
An inner émigré, grown long-haired
And thoughtful; a wood-kerne
Escaped from the massacre,
Taking protective colouring
From bole and bark, feeling
Every wind that blows;
Who, blowing up these sparks
For their meagre heat, have missed
The once-in-a-lifetime portent,
The comet's pulsing rose.
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Pearl swans shatter
the ice,
and glide swiftly through the
stars sparkling
on the mirror lake.
Twilight falls to the night
and the air
creates glistening
twisted crystals which climb
up the trees and freeze
the antique summer remnants.
The spindled sprigs of silver
birches drape their lustre
wantonly, forming long
ripples in a lengthy cascade.
Then the darkness retreats as
the pale blue haze of dawn approaches
where the robin's breath
sighs tangibly on the air.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 2:34 PM UTC
The right winter
for dope and ice
for walks along the river route
home
The right winter
for arctic pin-prick wind
holes in boots
turquoise dress coat
far too thin
for walks along the river
But The Merrimack couldn’t find her way
when fabric moguls migrated south
Fascinated by nylon nasties
they traded their silks and cottons
for those petro-polyesterdays
While she—
could no more manufacture life
than mint their money
So, they blamed her
Pronounced her—“Dead”
Decried her *****
Now—
She wanders sadly under bridges
stopping to eddy in an overhang of birches
In dank canals, I found her sleeping
angered only at the falls
Poor outcast!
with current edge she splinters light
from cities sadder still
retching her oily stench
past Plum Island
into the sea— into me
What’re a few warm tears
falling from someplace on a bridge
to the icy waters of the Merrimack?
Rivers get lost in the ocean don’t they?
Let them find each other there
Mar 27, 2017
Mar 27, 2017 at 12:49 AM UTC
I had not been born yet.
Still, I can see you at your labor -
alone, scouring the meadows
for the stones -
lifting their gray shoulders
from the moist earth -
pulling them from the
green grasp of briars,
goldenrod, and
Queen Anne’s Lace.
The smell of the earth
must have filled you with
your own childhood memories -
of plowing fields
and cold mornings
trudging across barn yards
mud thick on your boots -
promising yourself
that someday you would leave
and never return.
I can hear the pick axe -
the sharp strikes
against the stones,
and the dull thud
when the earth
swallowed the blade -
and the deep exhalations
when the stones tumbled into
the old wheelbarrow – new then -
that now leans rusting
against my garden shed.
Some of the stones were so large -
far too large for one man –
how did you move them?
I look at the old photographs
and you seem so young –
so much younger
than I am today - and so thin –
staring off-frame beyond the camera.
What were you looking for
in those fields?
I can see you sorting the stones,
stacking them -
building and unbuilding
and rebuilding the walls
and terraces
until the walls were true
and the terraces level
and planted with dogwood,
birches, soft grass for bare feet,
and bordered with roses.
Did you know
that you were building my castle?
That the highest terrace
would be my tower and keep?
I remember calling out to my
knights, my legionnaires,
and tribesmen –
rallying them in defense
of the citadel – ready for
the coming siege.
I also remember looking out
across that verdant kingdom
for the last time -
no longer a king or a boy –
and miles away, across the river
to the west, I imagined
the new home that awaited us.
I couldn’t know
how far away it would be
or what it meant to leave.
This morning,
as I looked out across
the garden that I have built,
I felt the weightlessness of time
and its gravity
settling me into place.
For a brief moment I had
the sensation that I was standing
on the shoulders of
gathered stones.
(for my father, Guy Spencer.)
Tom Spencer © 2015
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 12:13 PM UTC
I walk along a path
I do not know
But falter left nor right,
And, welcoming the light
Of birches, still and white
As sleeping snow,
A raven, coat that shimmers
Soft as coal,
Beside me flutters square
And, drawn like to a snare,
Alights upon the air
As on a knoll.
A ripened chestnut, trapped
Within his maw
And hard as ancient ice,
Is tightened by the vise
And shatters at the slicing
Of his jaw
To crumble into dust,
Which quick cascades
And settles, as it slows,
To carefully compose
The shape of raven toes
Where he parades.
The raven flies ahead
And, with a stamp,
His talons take a grip
Atop a wooden tip
Of birches, dead and stripped
To form a ramp.
I stumble after, fixed
Through field of black
As in a telescope,
And, clawing at the slope,
I climb it with a hope
To touch his back
And ****** a hand ahead
Just as he slumps,
Both limp but stiff, to lie
Upon his side and die.
I meet his cloudy eye
Upon the stump,
Then lift my head to find
A willow sprig,
A tendril hanging free
For me to grip. Indeed,
I climb the strip of tree,
The little twig,
And swivel in the air,
As if by choice.
I hear a humming, low,
Resounding from below—
The raven’s eyes, aglow
With Odin’s voice.
Like lightbulbs flicker, dim
with yellow light,
They sharpen with the tones
That bellow from his bones—
This god and poet moans
His heavy spite:
He damns me to the lifetime
of a bird.
My sin, I do not know
But bear the bitter woe
And close my eyes to focus
On this word:
Saṃsāra. So I feel my
Senses spill
Upon the ground
And flood out all around
And swallow every sound
Till all is still.
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 5:50 PM UTC
The sighing winds had lulled me here;
The waltzing boughs, too, had fallen for its charm;
The ivy, ferns, alders and the birches;
The quivering hemlock against my arm.
The travelled path was now long left behind,
And on hills of gentle moss I stood and gazed about
To find the purple cloak of twilight painting me,
And all the pines, not one left out.
II
The harvest moon in its splendour came rising,
Had poured itself on the waters deep;
The birds were silent, the wind still sighing
Had brought the woodland a drowsy sleep.
The dawn had come in golden light
And where I was I did not know -
I wandered long to find the path again,
And in the distance heard the river flow.
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 3:19 PM UTC
birches and tastsy jerky wood. resin in the immediate shubbary.... and dust and cobwwebs growing adjacent to the jerky wood. Myraid of birds, ranging from small birch-types to crows. A lingering dominant hawk. A giant possum crossing between borders carrying unborn infants. Dusty walls with abandonded spiderwebs- insect carcassases dangling, still. Pool motors revving in every direction lets of a subtle hum that compliments the planes descending and ascending oer-head
the water is grainy yet cool and healing. the sprinklers function at midnight and sometimes on the weekend. Maintinance trucks, expensive commuter vehicals, modest vehicls, unmanned vehicles, arrowhead trucks, macdonalds trucks, safeway trucks....
the earth is still wheaty and chalky adjacent the jerky trees, the jerky trees have little hairs and appetizing off red color, the bark saddles off with grace and with a satisfying tare.
Jul 18, 2018
Jul 18, 2018 at 6:24 PM UTC
Winter leaving, slips—
Forest draped in magenta sun,
Birches in painted clothes.
Jun 2, 2012
Jun 2, 2012 at 1:35 PM UTC
She doesn’t flinch beneath the weight of heat,
My breath explores the hollow of her thighs.
She waits—unmoving—where the birches meet,
She arches slowly… then my hush sighs.
My breath explores the hollow of her thighs,
A damp note, I taste the waking skin.
She arches slowly… then my hush sighs.
I circle close, inhale where love has been.
A damp note, I taste the waking skin,
Her pulse, a Spring fawn trembling beneath dry leaves.
I circle close, inhale where love has been,
Cool wet air licks the heat her silent body weaves.
Her pulse, a Spring fawn trembling beneath dry leaves,
A long, slow, sigh traces curves—shadow drips to skin.
Cool wet air licks the heat her silent body weaves,
A ****** breeze gazes upon her folds, eyes deep within.
A long, slow, sigh traces curves—shadow drips to skin,
I breathe in her gasp—wildflowers, warm and wet.
A ****** breeze gazes upon her folds, eyes deep within,
Lips part slowly, a drip lingers and falls—lips met.
She doesn’t flinch beneath the weight of heat,
I am a tender hush, a windy night, her secret dream.
She waits—unmoving—where the birches meet,
Forever as one, a silent, deep, pleasured scream.
Jul 13, 2025
Jul 13, 2025 at 5:29 PM UTC
The silver
Birch trees flaunt
Their glitz as I
Stroll through
Deep pearl
And sand
Pebbles
Gorgeous green
Mansions swirl
Around and
Blackbirds pick
Seeds from
The posy bunches
And sparkled
Grass.
I pass a
Pink butterfly house
With large Daisy
Heads protruding from
The diamond fencing.
The next house, a rather
Pretentious 'Cordillera',
Sounds like a disease.
A farm gate shields
4 by 4s and I'm
Now passing the weird
House with the crocodile
And gorilla and
Coloured Cow
And dog statues.
Coming to the
End of the lane
Of silver I pass
'Lane end'
Cottage with its viney
Stature and freshly
Manicured front lawn.
High cube hedges forming
A pathway to the porch.
In The final
Mansion if
Nosy passers
Have a peek you
Can see a
Swimming pool,
Fluffy Towels draped over
The Silver pool chairs.
Flitting to
The end of the
Dappled birches,
Approaches
A wide country green
Covered in bunting
Bathed in buttercups.
May 24, 2014
May 24, 2014 at 11:54 AM UTC
— after Melancholia
She’d have walked through fire for him —
A stranger with a fractured chameleon soul,
Tumultuous depths and misguided hymns,
But promises of patience and a steady stroll.
Stranger still, a fractured chameleon soul,
Restless beneath wind-tremors and silt-clay loam.
But with promises of patience and a steady stroll,
She follows the moon that leads her home
Restlessly. Wind tremors and silt-clay loam,
Burnt umber flicker-beats and faded birches.
She follows the moon, led home
To an abandoned, white-chip-painted church.
Beyond umber flicker-beats and faded birches,
He preached of salvation, but fell privy
Inside the abandoned, white-chip-painted church
Where green was gold and gold was envy.
He preached of salvation, but fell privy
To tumultuous depths and a misguided hymn.
Green was gold and gold was envy —
She’d have walked through fire for him.
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 4:00 PM UTC
The birches are mad with green points
the wood’s edge is burning with their green,
burning, seething—No, no, no.
The birches are opening their leaves one
by one. Their delicate leaves unfold cold
and separate, one by one. Slender tassels
hang swaying from the delicate branch tips—
Oh, I cannot say it. There is no word.
Black is split at once into flowers. In
every bog and ditch, flares of
small fire, white flowers!—Agh,
the birches are mad, mad with their green.
The world is gone, torn into shreds
with this blessing. What have I left undone
that I should have undertaken?
O my brother, you redfaced, living man
ignorant, stupid whose feet are upon
this same dirt that I touch—and eat.
We are alone in this terror, alone,
face to face on this road, you and I,
wrapped by this flame!
Let the polished plows stay idle,
their gloss already on the black soil.
But that face of yours—!
Answer me. I will clutch you. I
will hug you, grip you. I will poke my face
into your face and force you to see me.
Take me in your arms, tell me the commonest
thing that is in your mind to say,
say anything. I will understand you—!
It is the madness of the birch leaves opening
cold, one by one.
My rooms will receive me. But my rooms
are no longer sweet spaces where comfort
is ready to wait on me with its crumbs.
A darkness has brushed them. The mass
of yellow tulips in the bowl is shrunken.
Every familiar object is changed and dwarfed.
I am shaken, broken against a might
that splits comfort, blows apart
my careful partitions, crushes my house
and leaves me—with shrinking heart
and startled, empty eyes—peering out
into a cold world.
In the spring I would be drunk! In the spring
I would be drunk and lie forgetting all things.
Your face! Give me your face, Yang Kue Fei!
your hands, your lips to drink!
Give me your wrists to drink—
I drag you, I am drowned in you, you
overwhelm me! Drink!
Save me! The shad bush is in the edge
of the clearing. The yards in a fury
of lilac blossoms are driving me mad with terror.
Drink and lie forgetting the world.
And coldly the birch leaves are opening one by one.
Coldly I observe them and wait for the end.
And it ends.
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Having a Coke with You
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the **** Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it
by,
FRANK O'HARA
Mar 13, 2013
Mar 13, 2013 at 12:27 PM UTC
Here is a voice that soundeth low and far
And lyricvoice of wind among the pines,
Where the untroubled, glimmering waters are,
And sunlight seldom shines.
Elusive shadows linger shyly here,
And wood-flowers blow, like pale, sweet spirit-bloom,
And white, slim birches whisper, mirrored clear
In the pool's lucent gloom.
Here Pan might pipe, or wandering dryad kneel
To view her loveliness beside the brim,
Or laughing wood-nymphs from the byways steal
To dance around its rim.
'Tis such a witching spot as might beseem
A seeker for young friendship's trysting place,
Or lover yielding to the immortal dream
Of one beloved face.
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Now this must be the sweetest place
From here to heaven's end;
The field is white and flowering lace,
The birches leap and bend,
The hills, beneath the roving sun,
From green to purple pass,
And little, trifling breezes run
Their fingers through the grass.
So good it is, so gay it is,
So calm it is, and pure.
A one whose eyes may look on this
Must be the happier, sure.
But me--I see it flat and gray
And blurred with misery,
Because a lad a mile away
Has little need of me.
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His gaze adrift through countless windows
Dreaming far beyond his eyes will ever see
The birches wept amongst cold shadows
Reminiscing of spring and leaves of green
By a southernly breeze the moment swept
He stood wondering, why do they still weep
For that moment swept, was indeed a lifetime
Charles Casanova 10/5/14
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 8:27 AM UTC
The golden burn of dusk
kisses my window panes and walls;
On table tops it rests,
the moon and stars it calls.
Far above the horizon,
the honey sun waves good-bye
With sighs of blues and purples,
its glory's end is nigh.
The birds sing their last songs
atop the birches' bough
And the sunset leave us thinking,
"What do we really know?"
In another world it is rising,
but right here it hides from view,
burying its face, so when morrow comes
we can marvel its glory anew.
Aug 12, 2015
Aug 12, 2015 at 1:17 PM UTC
It's mid-July but in my heart, it is winter;
I curl up in the back of a closet, wrapped in blankets
and the scent of salty water and seaweed crawls up my nostrils
until I'm choking;
it engulfs me, a cold embrace, the breeze piercing me
through clothes that somehow feel like a fisherman's net
twisted around me, leaving marks on my skin.
It's mid-July but in my heart, it is winter;
like driftwood washed upon the shore,
like sand sifting through my fragile fingers,
like an imminent sea storm, danger impending,
memories crush me.
Sunburnt skin, goosebumps and droplets of water;
bodies pressed, wounds left to heal
and scars that slowly fester.
There's something autumnal in summer,
gashes bleeding ink.
It's mid-July but in my heart, it's winter:
remember, remember when we used to sit
under birches, lashes shiny with droplets
of dreams,
remember, remember, bicycles, children with eyes bright and green,
freckled faces, salty-tasting kisses,
scorching sun and summer winds.
Midnight storms, skies lightened, torn
by lightning bolts --
July is not the time for eulogies,
remember lazy afternoons, you, me, the boat,
regret always tastes as bitter
as children's lips just slightly touching
far away from coast.
It's mid-July but in my heart, it's winter;
the tide will wash away another fisherman's corpse;
remember all the tales of sirens?
You never told me Death came with hair of gold.
There's nothing quite so sad as being sad in summer.
It is July, and yet outside it snows.
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 10:19 AM UTC
Fire Agate
Rendered at last,
with seamless lines
of every shade
and layer on top of layer
As we know,
one burning tree
can set
it's forest aglow
and so came her soul
with fire's inside
But with fire comes chaos
Birches chirp
for consequential change
for her edge's
to chip away
Then a Maple
, through sweet rustles,
asks for more
Willows fume
fatal wishes
for the forest
to surrender,
for water over embers
A Cypress follows
, with deep concern,
and begs to stand
Ashes whisper
for another
just one more day
But an Elm
seeks that same color
but within her
and to stay
It's dangerous to dance
with this many tree's
"One day,
maybe I'll break,
and maybe someone,
maybe you,
will see
between the waves
that meet at peak,
that fold into another,
see why the cold sky
shy's behind the hot sun
but are drawn together,
see below the clear surface
that deceives
by gifting you assumptions,
see how clear agate
over hematite
gives you iridescence,
see beyond the points
we know,
and please see
where a circle stops.
Maybe you'll see
what I can't
, me"
Mar 15, 2021
Mar 15, 2021 at 9:51 AM UTC
I lay on the ground, shivering.
The walls around me are made of stone, they fill up my world.
I cannot see beyond them. Have never seen beyond them.
Instead, I lay in this pit, on the cold ground, with a dark light surrounding me. It is the only light in the Pit.
The light is of the sky that blows snowflakes onto the Earth. Far above, I see this sky and it illuminates this world into a grey haze.
The beauty of it is undeniable. Yet, a snowflake never falls here. There is no white to marvel.
Outside these walls, the snow fills a surrounding forest of white birches and the cold ground.
I have never seen the forest, but it is there.
I lay on the Pit's stone, shivering; dieing.
The whispers of the Demons haunt me. They are the only other voices I know.
They tell me nothing but what is horrible.
But this Pit and the Demons of Darkness are beautiful.
They are my life source and I am theirs.
But the price of this pain is costly.
Dec 7, 2013
Dec 7, 2013 at 3:44 PM UTC
i look at the clock
4am, another night
it's clear i'm not getting any dozing hours for myself
yet i still have to rise in two hours for class.
in this moment, i only wanted to die.
be buried under the beautiful birches in the lonely cemetery
maybe i can get all the sleep i need when i'm dead.
my heart still aches for you,
the fatal craving never subsiding.
the glowing red numbers burn into my eyes, once again
i haven't slept very well since the last time we spoke
Dec 31, 2014
Dec 31, 2014 at 6:41 PM UTC
(for Jill Jones)
Each day is always possible
I fling myself at chances.
My horizon pulses its limitless light
splitting atoms, shattering the white.
Silver birches shiver spotlights
whispering forgotten lines in my ears.
Feathered clouds soar and skim
as I taste the vast blue skin of sky.
I catch the words beneath the waves
each tide of syllables and song.
I’m sand-etched and scratch at
language lost and left on the shore.
I make for the glowing yellow moment
and live in metaphor.
© M.L.Emmett 2016
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 2:30 PM UTC
LISTEN a while, the moon is a lovely woman, a lonely woman, lost in a silver dress, lost in a circus rider's silver dress.
Listen a while, the lake by night is a lonely woman, a lovely woman, circled with birches and pines mixing their green and white among stars shattered in spray clear nights.
I know the moon and the lake have twisted the roots under my heart the same as a lonely woman, a lovely woman, in a silver dress, in a circus rider's silver dress.
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