L0VE FOR A QUEEN

by 
Gwen Austin

Copyright 1999


A Queen of English birches still stands,
at a bit of a slant
and minus a few branches, 
at the head of our yard
on a New Hampshire hilltop.

Through all seasons, she reigns,
delicate green leaves in spring,
tent-caterpillar enticing buffet in summer,
pale gold leaves in fall,
white and black-accented bark,
counterpointing snowdrifts in winter.

Old Man Robertson,
Hinsdale's paper mill owner,
imported her from England
as a teenage sapling,
and planted her 
among his showplace white pines.

There she flourished until 1938.
That year's hurricane 
ungraciously upended her
and flung her flat.
But Old Man Robertson
would not leave it at that.

He hired a team of horses
to pull her upright.
He hitched her to surrounding pines.
Gone now are those guy wires,
but her trunk still bears blackened scars
where they dug into her white flesh.

It was in 1941
 the Austins purchased the land
and our love of Queen Birch began.

Under her boughs,
our roofed jungle hammock we slung,
where we whiled away summer hours,
for there were books to be read
and songs to be sung.

On her sloughed-off white bark,
mottled by black marks,
we wrote letters to Grandma.
I wonder if they ever got to her whole,
or were they shattered in the mail?

Wind and ice have had their way
with our Queen of the day.
Branches have been broken,
lightning blazed its dark token.

Fifteen years ago,
we rescued one stout branch
from breaking under its own weight.
We drilled a hole through it and her trunk,
inserted a four-foot bolt,
secured by a pie-size washer and nut.

We are glad we didn't wait
and leave all to fate.
Queen Birch still stands,
glorious and grand.