Birches
I walk the rough stone driveway
and from their long white trunks
brighter than winter air
I sense their dark eyes watching,
motionless, without judgment
as when taking something fully in.
I know these eyes are wounds
healed over or scars from branches fallen.
And I know the language between us
is untranslatable.
But for the entire three-mile hike
I sense their eyes behind me
holding me as I might hold
an over-full glass of water,
meniscus trembling
in the white winter sky
as they look with great precision
measure me as I grow smaller
by the mailbox, letter in my hand.
And though at a great distance
I can feel them taking in
the loops and dips in the black script
of the address and its return
as I might observe without distinction
the wreaths of moss around their trunks
if I were focusing on something else
or everything at once.
Sally Bliumis-Dunn’s poems have appeared the New York Times, Paris Review, PBS NewsHour, Plume, Poetry London, Prairie Schooner, RATTLE, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-day and Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry”. Read more.
Sally Bliumis-Dunn’s poem, “Birches”, was published on SWWIM Every Day, June 5th, 2021.