Another Birch Tree

This exclusive real estate was lava

maybe a billion years ago -

how else to explain the thick black crust

at the base of this birch? That survived

ax-splittings or lightning strokes

(too many to be unmalicious)

and bifurcated again and

again above the char -

it's the willow kind, but

too far from water and too busy

profiting from spring to weep

or express any human message -

its unscarred bark keeps peeling,

its seeds are going to fall on

asphalt - right now

the sunlight is strong.