Birches birches birches true and white demure of habit and standing on ceremony bending there left or right a grove a classical harmony and yet some secret moves among them Light quivers Is it the aspens twinkling The night comes up reining a dark breeze ruffling the spirit and the near trees quicken sparkle vanish to the forest among dogwood and elm spruce and balsam viburnum and sweet locust beech rockmaple tamarack alder a congress a quiet congress for not one leaf intrudes predominantly Yet this repose this calm this being fills the night of the living woods. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WHEN I PERUSE THE CONQUER'D FAME by WALT WHITMAN A MARLOW MADRIGAL by JOSEPH ASHBY-STERRY TO SWEET MEAT, SOUR SAUCE; AN IMITATION OF THEOCRITUS OR ANACREON by PHILIP AYRES TARQUIN AND THE AUGUR by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN VILLAGE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |