beneath the birches by Norma Kerby

July 15, 2022
Poet name: Norma Kerby Poem name: beneath the birches Poem: should this wind stop and whirling white devils of late snow diminish i will take your body and walk to the meadow to the birches i will carry you paper white bark stark against sweeping cedars branch noises chattering through hissing squalls no flowers bloom between cold snow patches splattered across sodden ground we go to where groundwater melts ice in tiny rivers to our birches old friend you will like it there body buried deep in rich black soil birches and skunk cabbages and memories melding here where you hunted voles pouncing through piles of ruffled leaves here where we sat in speckled sun dozy and dreaming white birch trunks silky white fur cat merged forever into a fecund world End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Norma Kerby Norma Kerby lives on the traditional territories of the Tsimpsean First Nations in northwestern British Columbia. Published in e-zines, journals and anthologies, her writing emphasizes life in rural and northern Canada. Her chapbook, Shores of Haida Gwaii (Big Pond Rumours Press), explores the poetic interface between ocean and land for those rugged shorelines.