What do birches teach us,
their yellow leaves long ago
having tumbled to the ground,
exposing limbs to whatever raw
& consequential wind
may come? Trunks stippled
with dark eyes. Branches now
boasting only the robust breasts
of crows. I will not mention roots.
This is not about them,
those long siphons stretching
toward water's deep horizon.
Look closer. See the lenticels
scattered across the white bark.
They look like scars, as if a cold
blade striated the surface. But no,
they are not slits in the trees' bloodless
throats. (There is no violence here.)
They are pores oxygen slides through
as simply & surely as sunlight
slips through a spider's silk net.
Lean in. Listen to the soft
cellular breath tell you what it can.


From Full Worm Moon (Cascade Books, 2018).
This poem first appeared in Freshwater.
Used here with the author's permission.