Birch
by Michael Spence–for Sharon
I think I now know
Why the birch will split the thin
Layer of its skin again
And again but rarely show
The darker wood at its core.
Although the bark peels
Back, it won’t reveal
Anything more
Than another papery scroll
Of white. Maybe the wind
Believes the tree has sinned
Against it by failing to hold
The song of its travels. The streaks
On this bark—brown and sparse—
Are like a sort of Morse
That can’t transcribe the peaks
Of snow and races of rivers
The gusts have swept across.
But still the birch is the voice
The wind speaks in when it shivers
The flaps of bark like torn
Sheet music. No matter
How it claws at the tatters,
The wind can’t change the score.
I spent a hitch as a junior naval officer aboard the aircraft carrier, USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), a vessel since decommissioned. (Thus I have small fear I'll be recalled to active duty aboard it.) I then drove public-transit buses in the Seattle area for thirty years, a job I've now been retired from for six months. Poems of mine have appeared recently in The Hudson Review, The North American Review, The Sewanee Review, Measure and The Southern Review. My fourth book, The Bus Driver's Threnody, is available from Truman State University Press and my fifth, Umbilical, is forthcoming from St. Augustine's Press. I was awarded a 2014 Literary Fellowship from Artist Trust of Washington State.
