by Jim Tilley
We are used to white birches in the forest
growing straight and tall, but I passed by one
in a yard, bent and twisted, branches curled
downward to the ground before rising again,
as if it had suffered too many ice storms
and never recovered. Beside it, a lush
sugar maple grown taller, dominating
the yard, its mid-height leaves mingling with the top
of the birch’s. Not exactly brothers those two,
more like step-siblings, yet raised at the same
time in the same place, exposed to the same
air, sun, and rain, rooted in the same soil,
but one always in the shadow of the other.
Sometimes, a space is just too small for two.