Birches When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of strong bent boughs, I like To think some boy’s been swinging them. But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and the snow’s in curls, And the wind works their branches. I’d like to go Back to be. It’s the anticipation of that Which makes me bend, to see the trees bend and twist Fitted to their ways.

So I think that is why I see them, the Soft white movement at the edge of my vision. I’d like to be sure as I clasped them Though there isn’t a grip. It’s just their nature To bend and twist; their sway is satisfying all the same. It’s just that I want the feel of it; to see what it is Makes them bend; not just one particular tree, But all of them bending, everywhere. I want to be so steady I can see the clasping Like as if from a hive filled with wasps, Here. So keen a satisfaction it gives me. If I got the chance, I would take Those birch trees bending down to the earth, And hold them close; closer than the wind, as the wind whines, To have them always in my hand to see, Those curls of trees still bending down before the weight of the snow.

I would hold them so I would not forget the bending And the swaying, the gentle feeling of it. That natural way is the charm behind every one. I will never be able to bend those trees,
To clasp the wonder of it with my two hands, To feel the weight; to rock and sway like branches Of trees in space. I want to hold them close, Like those happy boyhood years, remembering how Those trees bent to my warm, unknowing hand. I would love to be acquainted once again
With those birches then, though at a distance I can see them
The way we once used to see each other’s hearts,
So close, touching again those trees. Where are they swinging; those trees whose hands I would clasp, To feel their full, happy shafts of yellow-green in summer, In winter our arms like whistle-wane trees,
To reach, as lovers do, back in their trees To bond those winters and the loneliness that holds us too,
In alien arms. I hold them within my heart fondly. Bending out of sight, and reaching to establish What we once knew so well.

• Robert Frost