nichepoetryandprose

Birch bark is on my top ten list of natural phenomena.  Just the outer covering of a tree, but for me it has so many associations.

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Walking in a stand of birch is an experience like no other.  The trees are ghosts, wavering and pale, unable to speak but capable of subtle quiet communication.  In the slightest breeze, they whisper in short syllables, dry murmurings I cannot quite understand.

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Birch bark is magical.  Unravelled from its tree by a little tugging of the wind.  Like paper, in thin dry sheets.  Covered in unreadable script.  You know removing the bark could be dangerous for the tree but it lures you, encourages you to reach out and strip it away in unbroken, unblemished reels.

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Such a useful tree: birch bark canoes, tinder for a campfire, sweet sap from yellow birch, the wintergreen scent of crushed yellow birch twigs.  And now, the promise of colour.

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Using bark as dyestuff requires time rather than heat.  Jenny Dean (Wild Colour, New York, 2010) suggests soaking the bark for days, even weeks to extract the first colour.  She says never to boil bark since heat may release tannins and dull any resulting colour.  From her book, I expect birch bark to yield colours ranging from purple to pinkish-red.

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birch bark, donated by my brother-in-law

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I am so grateful to my brother-in-law for allowing me to use the birch bark he has collected as he works on next winter’s stove-wood supply.  I am sure he was saving it for a project of his own.

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strips of birch bark layered in the dyepot

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To start, I stripped the sheets of bark into narrow pieces and set it to soak in cool water in my big dye pot.

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strips of birch bark, set to soak in water

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I intend to leave it for a month before I take the next step of simmering the bark and dying my wool.

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requesting the favour of a reply

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these leafless trees

brush against

a linen sky

ink strokes

on rice paper

letters penned

at midnight

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hidden in the hollow

heart of an oak

afraid to reach in

to feel only

curls of birch bark

desiccated leaves

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these trees

all seem the same

empty envelopes

parchment ghosts

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branches tangled

messages

lost

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black spruce scribbled on sky

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Poem previously posted 19/08/2011

Copyright  2014  Jane Tims