When I See Birches..

..bend to left and right, 
Across the lines of straighter darker trees, 
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do.

(from Birches by Robert Frost)

When I see birches, I am always reminded of that poem..funny how certain lines or phrases stick with you after all those years..usually from English class in high school..Sometimes I wonder if my students now in middle age do the same...or was it the way we were taught? We did a lot of memorizing back in the day..Whatever..To this day, certain lines from classic poems and plays still lurk in this old brain! 

I was feeling somewhat under the weather today and although it was very cold - minus 16 without wind chill - I thought a wee jaunt to the conservation area would perk me up..It was a pretty deserted place this morning - one family - only one - laden down with pails and ziplock bags of sunflower seeds trudging off into the woods to feed the chickadees, and me, heading off in a different direction to the birch grove. 

Others had gone before me - yesterday it seemed - as the tracks in the snow were now iced over and the resultant path solidly rutted, making it a bit of a challenge for old hips and ankles to manage easily.There were snowshoe tracks in the woods and deer tracks along the path..so yesterday it had been popular spot.

Today I was the only one there, but I was not alone. I was accompanied by a cardinal and a chickadee. They both followed me as I walked, flitting from one tree to another along the way, sticking close, obviously in hopes that I had some seeds to offer.. Alas, I had none...and once that was evident, they went on their way...leaving me alone in the birches to wonder why I am drawn to those trees so much, and to wonder why that poem by Frost had stuck with me for so long...

I still have a visual of that little boy swinging in a birch tree and riding it back down almost to the ground ....but try as I might, I couldn't remember much of the actual poem..All I could quote from memory was... 

"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches"
 
So of course, I went home and looked it up to refresh my memory..My little jaunt of the day had unexpectedly sent me back to my teenage years in high school..and to one particular poem...fancy that!