what a flat line that is,
browsed beneath the aspen -
what a dark straight strip
down the white bark -
it’s a mystery how they grow
sucker after sucker, leaf after leaf
bare branches in winter; bright
by fall; trembling in summer -
limelike in the limelight of spring
presenting Populous tremuloides
in starlit snowbanks, featured
performer in the dance of rut
star of not a single table
til the bright eyed browsers come
to nibble at midnight
