Lenny Everson

To Birches

 

A poem from a person who's led a fairly solitary life, but thinks that in the next life being more social might be a nice option.

 

Next life

I would be a tree.

Not the open-field oak

Not the solitary pine:

I would be a birch

One among many

 

Birches grow after fires

I would grow

After this fire

Beside the black stumps

When the woods are gold

And alive

With the rustling of squirrels

My one white line

Leaning down the slope a bit

Tracing the edge

Of happiness.