Night Birches Poem by Thomas Hooker

Night birches


The hand keeps the fingers
steady and balanced,
white lines tracing chalk

on black paper, rendering
birches on a starry night
lost in the woods.

Contrasting words
in pastel light, naked
in the abyss,

skyward branches, pale
arms stretch out, gathering
white on a winters night,

paper birch in moonlit trees,
downy flakes collecting fast,
on the second night,

in the second month,
when into the darkness
goes chalk and light.