Paper Birches
There are white birches outside my building. On a clear afternoon,
the west sides of the slender trunks blaze with sunlight; the east
sides glow with soft light reflected from the building windows.
There is no darkness around these trees. Moss will never grow on
them.
I hold up a sheet of paper, and it kindles bright on both sides.
I hold up a poem, and one side is lit by reflection from the faces of
listeners. The other side is brilliant with divine radiance. In this
transaction I illuminate nothing. My fingerprint on the paper is
only a shadow. The poem is incandescent. The poem is a white
birch.
—Tiel Aisha Ansari
“Paper Birches” is taken from Dervish Lions. Copyright © 2022 by Tiel Aisha Ansari. Used by permission of Fernwood Press. All rights reserved. www.fernwoodpress.com. Photo by Margaret Polinder, via Unsplash.
"The poem is a white
birch."
I like this part -
"I hold up a poem, and one side is lit by reflection from the faces of
listeners."
It's intriguing when an artist pokes a hole through the fourth dimension. And that makes me think of The Sadbook Collections piece called, "minimalism," as far as awareness of audience and art.
https://sadbook.substack.com/p/minimalism