Before my teacher reads the poem,
she has to explain.
A birch, she says, is a kind of tree
then magically she pulls a picture
from her desk drawer and the tree is suddenly
real to us.
“When I see birches bend to left and right . . .” she begins
“Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think”—
and when she reads, her voice drops down so low
and beautiful
some of us put our heads on our desks to keep
the happy tears from flowing
—“some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do.”
And even though we've never seen an ice storm
we've seen a birch tree, so we can imagine
everything we need to imagine
forever and ever
infinity
amen.