Outside Art

photo of birches by Jean Morris

Outside the gallery
drawn up in close formation
a battalion of birches

straight from a forest
in a melancholy Russian novel
or one of those eerily pretty
paintings by Gustav Klimt

bright as morning air
their shadows charcoal strokes
on dusty ground

sculpted and framed by the eyes
of arriving aficionados
these modestly exuberant white wands
are also art.