I am a birch
standing among evergreens
which ooze sticky resin thick
with truths
They are proud
and so assured of their reach
While I am stripped layer-by-layer
undone

It is Fall and my littered coins drop
without a sound on a ground
that cringes beneath the lightness
of my being

This winter will break
against my limbs
and chisel black scores into my skin
but it skims through the pines
holding audience with the gods

The conifers defend their fruit
with armored breastplates
and coddle their brood
as a sacred trust
My seeds are fool's gold-
pieces of sol
Dreams that bare no weight
on the wind

I have tried to allay my thirsty pain
at a creek fed by acid rains
that freeze into glittery crowns
at mountain's crest
But they melt into dirty streams
at the timberline
I bathe my sorrows in absinthe

Time has me to let go
So I count off my paper bills
as fodder for the ancients
who suck the marrow 
from my brittle bones

I am bloodmeal for the conifers
A ghost among the evergreens