Birch on the mountain

The swelling brook poured naked, babbling on
about the cankered roots it touched each morn
and the broken limbs it carried on its back
which have grown white and brittle and forlorn
embraced by grasses, vines, but feeling none
their deaths all piled in a nameless stack.

The mountain burned, became a sea of spears
bent by the bitter wind for thirteen years.

Where is my will to fight? Where is my heart?
The winter clouds obscured the mountaintop.
The world inverted, pouring down on us.
Where is the beating drum of passion's gallop?
Drowned in the brutal fear the rains impart,
His whirlpool eye, the deep imperious.

Then new birch shimmered in a thousand rays,
their newborn bark resembling the dead
but limber, bending lively in the wind.
They steel themselves together, cheer the red
elder ones who outlived the bitter days.
I saw the Host of Heaven, wept and grinned.