THE SQUAMSCOTT BIRCH
Barrel chested and brawny armed,
The aged birch still stands
Incongruous on the riverbank.
They have fenced it in
With posts and a metal chain
To ward off scrambling kids.
How many years did it take
To put out all those limbs,
One torn off by lightning
Or by wind: the scar remains.
It’s younger than the pines
That sheltered shell diggers,
But did it watch the big-sailed
Gundalows barging bricks?
It could not in its salad days
Arrow skyward slimly straight
But branched and branched again
For what was near at hand.
Hugely ugly, it calls
Out to me. It haunts my
Memory. It’s begging to be
Made into a poem.
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