The Birch

Birch the silver shadowy soulful
Sentinel survivor
A scout that surfaces sooner
Than most trees let me say
It can face up to wintry wildness
Being wholly versatile
It grows all over the temperate zone
And has done so for a while

Known as the white lady
And the goddess tree
Linked to Freya and the
Norse Rune Berkana
Growing free

It represents renewal
The first tree of oghams
And of the Celtic year
Makes fantastic charcoal
And gunpowder so
I hear

After ground is disturbed
The birch is the first tree
To re appear.
Fly agaric works with birch
Companions apparently
A patron of hallucinogenic journeyers
Beauty
White papery bark
It’s sap tastes better than it should
A hard wood yellowish to white
And As firewood burns so quietly
Which for the hearth is good