The Silver Birch by Vincent O’Connor

In the garden of my deceased dad there stood a single tree.
It bore no fruit, offered no druids’ code,
brought forth no metaphors of use.

It gave us only shade and aerial interference,
and when it too, became diseased and was removed,
it could not even do that.

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About the author:

Vincent O’Connor is originally from Kilfinane, in Co. Limerick, Ireland. Having previously lived and worked in Spain and Japan, he now lives in Cork with his wife, two kids, two foreign students and two cats. He is a dog person. His poems have appeared, or are upcoming, in, amongst others, The Penny Dreadful, The Lake, Right Hand Pointing, The Puffin Review, Acorn, the Asahi Shimbun, Frogpond and Modern Haiku. Vincent rarely tweets  https://twitter.com/vincentoconnor_

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