Disappearing Birch Forest / When I'm Gone by Ingrid Bruck

Disappearing Birch Forest

When I was a child, 

I thought the birches I knew 

grew on a mountain cliff

when I walked the deer trail 

across its steep flanks. 

I meandered alone 

in fields and woods.

I’d look through leaf lace 

into a drop studded 

with lollipop stick trunks,

walk the hillside trail

straight across at a slow rise.

I learned that a slant path 

can be the best way to go,

a lesson I try to remember 

when writing poems. 

When I return as an adult, 

the forest has vanished,

swallowed by a sandpit.

When I’m Gone

These words are for you, granddaughter,

a treasure map of history and myth

about a family that no longer exists 

in a world that has changed to something different 

you won’t remember the stories I didn’t tell you

or the wildflowers I never grew in the garden

or the jars or jam and fruit I never canned

or the pines, gulls and waves at Stella Maris

when it was a retreat house before you were born

when I still remembered family stories

when I still had four brothers and four sisters

when I still fed nectar to hummingbirds

when I still kept a wildflower garden,  

grew vegetables, berry bushes and fruit trees

I share these conversations with you that I recorded

when Mother Earth held me on her lap

Ingrid Bruck lives in Amish country in Pennsylvania, a landscape that inhabits her writing. A retired library director, she writes short forms and short poems. Current work appears in Haibun Today, Rat’s Ass Review, Halcyon Days, I Am Not A Silent Poet and Soul-Lit. Poetry website:  ingridbruck.com