Birches

Poetry

Winter. Fog Arkhip Kuindzhi 1895. Public Domain

From the fog of a never ending night

Rise the birches

Just the branches and naked branches

Of wooden vessels without leaves

Without skies they can touch

(There were never any)

Spreading deep into a haze

Of a memory of one writer

Who wrote about birches

In a place of winter

Not as cold as mine

But I think to myself

I see it now

I see it now

I see the birches

Following us everywhere

You and me

The inspecting pots of pain

The care taking ghosts of life’s moss

—

Vaishali Paliwal