Birch Trees

Birch trees are the ghosts of our ancestors!

The lake is time-stretching light into strips!

Taking it! Making it sinister!

Benevolent light has died on the lakes stretching and sinking to the other end of the earth

Bottom feeders reflect here, say:

Take what you can get!

And there is the full moon up there in the sullen blue stain of a sky looking like a pearl

turning to two, suspended in its bubble

(iridescence on its surface, no more colors can fit)

And there are the headlights gliding the switchback, the city breathing

polka dotted fluorescence up into night

Venus vibrating like a tuning fork.

When the birch trees decide to

they will bow down and release the sky on their backs

and it will be our turn to the carry the weight of the world.