The Desire to Taste Birch

by

Crystal Dawn Allen

i am overcome with a desire to taste birch.

as spring yawns and smiles, the bitter skin that the trees once wore begins to crack, and peel away. today i saw vibrant colours appear beneath, pale lemon, strawberry, raspberry and violet. almost bruised, almost sore, stinging under the sunlight. how easy to tear that milky-white flesh, to strip the meat from the bones that i know lie green and fertile beneath. how would it taste?

that forest is a cemetary of skeletons, the branches like clenched fists gripping at the sky. all of this- these bones, they could be mine, if they would

be mine.

the guy who makes me tea spoke often of temptaion, temptation as pure and innocent as rain. he said:

"This is your way of doing things.

Look, but don't touch.

Touch, but don't taste.

Taste, but don't swallow.

This is your way of doing things."

have you gathered beneath branches of cherry blossoms while they storm about you in the breeze, a shower of pink and white, and felt beloved? have you held an acorn in your hand, knowing that within you palm (so dirty and wretched) you are warming a mighty oak? then to sit beneath its shade, and ponder the seed, while the leaves decode the face of god into complex combinations of light and shadow.

what did you see? did you look (did you dare), did you touch, did you taste, did you wonder what would happen if you swallowed?

NEXT?
Why don't you look at What have done 2
by: Chan Mongol
from: Jamaica, NY, US

To visit all of Crystal Dawn Allen's poems, click HERE

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