Poetree

Standard

I want to write a poem about my Birch tree

Yet I feel my observations might besmirch me

To you, my fair reader, who had no temptation

Of reading my barking without compensation

The birch, she’s a three-trunk, a trifecta of trees

Who’s named for each son I’ve bounced on my knees

She’s a good forty feet tall, and provides perfect shade

For the vendors who park out front when they’re bade

  
To my home to address one thing or appliance

Which exists in the house, but not in compliance

But she’s shedding herself always, her green DNA
Without warning or notice on each blessed day
If it’s not ripe yellow leaves, then it’s buds, or it’s pollen

Abundant enough to shut your eyes swollen

Or branches or twigs, for they fall all the seasons

She shares quite a lot, she’s a tree, needs no reason!

Lo, the trimmers, they stalk 

To approach and begin talk 

Of topping her off, limb by limb!
” ’cause she’s too close to the house!

She might let in a big mouse

Through the gash she’ll create on your shingles!”

But her sweet narrow limbs, so wispy, so thin, 

I impart a sly grin, 

I’ll not pay you to help your purse jingle. 
She’s been here since ’03, she replaced a sick fir tree

Infested with mites and decay

A neighbor says she’s too big, to close to my house

I think, “Did I ask? I don’t care what you say.”  
She’ll outlive us all, for her roots are quite spread

Beneath grass, grown anemic and thin

‘Cause she sucks all the water and drains nitrogen
Her older bark is quite rough, but her newer like paper

That my sons have used to write me notes

Of greetings and devotion 

Based on instance, or notion
For in her long lifetime

We are just a vapor.  

=-=-=-=

Update: Oops. I wrote this in June. I haven’t written anything since, and I pushed the wrong button, apparently when visiting the WordPress app this morning… no matter. Maybe publishing this has loosened my writer’s block. There are no mistakes. 🙂 
Thank you.   

About Grass Oil by Molly Field

follow me on twitter @mollyfieldtweet. i'm working on a memoir and i've written two books thus unpublished because i'm a scaredy cat. i hail from a Eugene O'Neill play and an Augusten Burroughs novel but i'm a married, sober straight mom. i write about parenting, mindfulness, irony, personal growth and other mysteries vividly with a bit of humor. "Grass Oil" comes from my son's description of dinner i made one night. the content of the blog is random, simple, funny and clever. stop by, it would be nice to get to know you. :)

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