Artwork © Luis Lázaro Tijerina

 

My Life Amidst the Birch Trees

I will meet you under the white birch tree.
There we will talk of our homelands
wherever they may be
amidst the wind and snow drifts of March.
You understand that I have come here alone.
I have brought only myself,
the single birch tree teaching me how one can live,
splendidly alone and dying bravely alone,
among the lesser trees which never knew I existed,
not that I cared at all, amid the shivering golden boughs
of leaves caressing my sleeve.
I sigh quietly as springtime encounters the unforeseen,
the disquieting signed executive orders
which will kill millions who will never again see
a stand of birch in October blazing yellow
amidst the other trees
when their leaves begin
to rustle with pigments of gold, rusted browns
and reds floating into the etched skyline.
I am not a boy swinging on a birches’ limb,
but an old man thinking of how as a boy
I once made a bow out of birch—splitting the log,
scraping off the sap,
honing it down
to a fineness, then aiming the arrow with precision
beyond the horizon of ageless youth and sorrow.

 

Luis Lázaro Tijerina was born in Salina, Kansas. Mr. Tijerina has a Master of Art degree in history, concentration being military history and diplomacy. He is a published author of military theory, short stories, essays and poetry. Mr. Tijerina resides in Kansas.