Up in a Birch Tree

High up in the loveliest birch, I sat

an hour, perhaps two, 

and counted the knots in the rope swing below

where children once played. 

Where did my childhood go? 

For so long it seems I forgot to play, 

and now I'm grown up, —

or at least that's what they say—

and I'm supposed to do something remarkable. 

"Change the world," they said. 

"Invent something important!"

"Solve the problems of tomorrow."

But what about today? 

Oh, if only I could just keep growing

like this birch, with a thousand arms, 

waving its leaves in the evening glow; 

and that would be my only purpose.

What if I became a beekeeper, 

someone to appreciate the little things, 

tiny stripes and glassy wings, 

isn't that remarkable too? 

I sat, Hugging the birch, 

pleading it to whisper the answer in my ear, 

"Go ahead, my dear."

I clung to its branches tighter, 

until the white bark crumbled

and birch-dust powdered my upper arm. 

I noticed the wrinkles in its axillary branches. 

An old birch, a remarkable one.

Tell me, Birch, 

what am I to do?