Birch Poems

Rambles Through a Forest

Ramble Through a Birch Forest




the path is straight and narrow
not a rock in the way
birches as far as the eye can see
their trunks, like tall slender
asparagus stalks, reach skyward
their caps, leaves bunched 
at the top like celery
I look at their white bark
imagining sweet birch beer
distilled or the sturdy canoes
dug out of tough trunks
I would like

A Birch Tree's Confidence and The Weeping Willow's Lament

A BIRCH TREE'S CONFIDENCE

A young tree stands tall
Rooted to the woodland floor
Thinks itself immune
To all the struggles in store
As ignorant as a child

THE WEEPING WILLOW'S LAMENT

In the end, all trees
Must surrender to decay
Seep into the dirt
Shut their eyes and slip away
It’s a fate none can escape

Traitorous Eye by Charles d’Orleans translation

French poems by Charles d’Orleans in modern English translations by Michael R. Burch



Traitorous Eye
by Charles d’Orleans
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Traitorous eye, what’s new?
What lewd pranks do you have in view?
Without civil warning, you spy,
And no one ever knows why!

Who understands anything you do?
You’re rash and crass in your boldness too,
And your lewdness is hard

The View of the Sugarbush

Rippling soil sways in ways
In ways a maestro drunkenly
Displays their baton, Earth in
Perfect fluid Earthen motion
It conducts and plays en tandem
The symphony of syrup season
Rings through Vermont’s silken air
Each movement weaves effortless
In majesty.

Hickory smoke leaves the sap house
The chorus of birch bark harkens
Weaving through the chimney’s maw
A mirror of the lone sugarmaker
His jaw a practiced

birch branches

springs fresh birch branches
srtrong enough for fat squirrel
eating an acorn

birch trees

crumpled peeling bark 
exposes trees true beauty 
without any flaws

Picnic With Birch Trees

Birch wood trees,
Black and White
Green grass grows,
fresh
Flowers bloom,
but hide
Sun gleams yellow,
Thoughts take flight

Birch Trees

I clutch at the magazines,
the letters, the newspaper cutouts 
I look through your old notebooks
tracing over rows and rows of numbers 
a library catalog, a stamp
l’m looking for something more personal 
something that could make me feel you again 

there are birch trees everywhere you look 
I missed them, I longed for them
almost as much

Lake Side Birch Trees

   I could look at this painting
      forever, oh Klimt was a talent
lake side with birch trees is where I would like to be
      beside the dappled blue still water . . . 
         picking

Birch

The forgotten ramblings of an old acorn,
Will never become anything.
 
A mighty and tall tree,
Will not yield to the axe below.
 
But it still falls.

The Silver Birch

The white leather creaks
As damp pith breathes 
Thin and strong
Against a solemn sky. 

As branches again take
Punishment from northern winds
The trunk stands firm
Steeling itself for the assault ahead. 

Straight despite the brutish
Harsh and relentless gusts
The leather flakes and peels
Like a snake shedding skin. 

Ready for the new birth
Another year is coming
A cycle of the earth

Birch Tree

bare birch tree swaying
blizzard blows away branches ~
chiding chickadee


5th December 2022

For Tania Kitchin's "Winter Nature Themed Haiku" contest

Springtime Reveries

Buttery affection rains from the skies
Nurturing the tulips and daffodils
Bursts of joy upon the earth, to arise
With wonderous smiles, sunny thrills

Robins and wrens wrestle with the wind
Laughing and crooning, inspiring serenity
Warring with the windchimes, chagrined
By the swirling charms of love’s amenity

Oaks and birch whisper to the affections
Offering their silent hope with a caress
From the budding

The Birch Tree

The birch tree bends 
over the abandoned playground 
its papery thin bark peeling
exposing the stark white wood beneath
A few brown withered leaves 
that stubbornly refuse to fall
continue clinging to its branches 
fluttering in the frigid winter wind
like fringe from the tattered shroud
of a lonesome ghost 
searching for fellow lost souls
looming over the empty swings
and the

The Birch Tree

Cover me with the haze of
Fragmented years,
Let me sleep through this autumn
Where rains greedily devour 
Dying leaves,
And streams flow into the rotten silence. 
 
Clothe me with the moss
Which grew in the wrinkles of the forehead,
Make me senseless for the cruel fingers of the northerly wind,
And the silver which dwells  
On Venus Hill,
 
Just

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