Birchness

She stands among the barren clan

still clothed,

and yet she shivers.

With every wisp of winter wind

she quivers,

and whispers

dry and golden secrets

from her rooted soul:

of birds that fledged,

or insect galls

that mauled

her woody memory.

As her spicy sap flows

she furls

the green of Spring

in little whorls

to welcome slanted light

and longer days.

A slender thing,

with limbs askance

no child will climb up;

no treehouse hammered

to her skin,

no rope swing

or other thing,

like Oaks endure.

But she in all her tenderness

is at the once

both tensile

and sure.

 

-Patricia Thrushart

Patricia Thrushart has published two books, Little Girl Against The Wall, and Yin and Yang. Her work appears regularly in The Watershed Journal, a regional literary magazine of Northwestern Pennsylvania, and on the websites Dark Horse Appalachia and North/South Appalachia. Her poems have been published in Tiny Seed, The Brookville Mirror, Clarion University’s Tobeco, The Avocet, Still Point Arts Quarterly, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, The Indiana Gazette, Feminine Collective, Curating Alexandria and The Pennsylvania Poetry Society’s Magazine PENNESSENCE. In June 2019, she won first place in the National Federation of State Poetry Society’s Diamond T contest. She is an active member of the local writers’ community, presenting workshop sessions and participating in live poetry readings.