Birch

Always the driven, frustrated
maker, I remember
shantungs I sewed when
young, the oil paints
I failed to teach myself
to use: half-mixed tints
drenching the blond wood.
Slubbed and burnished,
this trunk is stained
the colours of tea and rose hips,
amber, linseed oil, rust.
Flies feast on the green
eroding its silver.
Here, at the drive's turn,
all decay and triumph,
this tree draws hand and eye
more strongly than any other.