A Silver Birch

stood alone and shunned by huddles
of bigger trees and rugby boys,
wilts slow the light in glinting puddles
with hollow drips of penny coins.

this silver birch of peeling skin,
this sinking feeling sinking in;
swells wide your lacuna then; and
you - its confused denizen -

besmirched, befuddled and all too
parched
will lap the white right from the pool
and lay thee down ’til blooming
March,

from deep below the sodden earth
return the embers to your hearth.