{After Robert Frost’s Birches}
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44260/birches
Down on Big Four Road no birches grew–
None at least that came to my attention.
The trees, more like for anyone to mention,
Were pines, of those we had more than a few.
Pine trees reach proudly to the sky,
Yet here and there arose a situation
Where trees would lose their native orientation,
Bowing low instead of standing high.
Some force of nature usually was to blame,
Yet neither snow nor ice had bent these so,
But Gulf hurricane winds’ fearsome blow–
And one less natural force I’d like to name.
We country boys and girls far from town
Found recreation anywhere we could,
And for amusement in the piney wood
We’d climb up sapling pines and ride them down.
We’d find a young pine, standing straight and tall.
And shinny up that scaly bark about
Twelve or fifteen feet, then swing way out,
Holding fast to be sure not to fall.
Thus cumbered, the blameless tree soon found
It had no more reasonable recourse
Than to bend, yielding itself to gravity’s force,
And ease its burden slowly to the ground.
So was I once myself a rider of pines–
Callous of the living tree’s integrity,
Despoiling it of perpendicularity–
For fun I altered the tree’s true design.
Anew I feel the sticky guilt, when
The maxim comes to mind you may know:
As a twig is bent so the tree will grow.
Did boy along with tree get bent back then?
Garry Breland 