Inner Woman Volume 2
50 Ode to Hidden Gold

Between the spruce, pines, and fir

birch and aspen

stir and quiver

Birch

near the water

wet roots in muskeg,

swamps or ponds

their bark

A beaver’s sweet delight

In the fall, with parachute wings

Samaras travel on brisk cool breeze

Unlike the aspen, who likes it dry

and clumps in groves

From roots spread far and nigh

The bark of each can do so much

A healers aid, set as a cast

Light and watertight as a canoe

Food for deer, elk, moose

shelter for a silly goose

But take them into the city

Oh, horrid pity

No matter the glory of rich yellow leaves

a gardener lists his pet peeves

Dense brush of aspen

spreading like fires

Sticky long catkin

litter birch branch spires

And the bulldozer is the answer

as oak and maple

become a street side enhancer

color of autumn’s sweet staple

So, let the birch and

cousin aspen quaking

grace the green

between pine, spruce and fir

in vast forest tracts

of wild natures empire

where no one complains

when gold saw-tooth leaves

shiver and stir

midst footless terrains