The smell of smoke from birch firewood, I would
Know anywhere. It's aromatic stuff.
It burns most evenly and hot and good
The best wood growing on the mountain bluff.
And ev'ryone knows birch is what burns best
In fireplaces, though I wonder if
There are parts where folks think that something else
Is best, like spruce or something slightly diff-
erent because they come from where, you see
birch isn't it. It's kind of like the folks
From places sown in Christianity
And folks from Islam's home, or Hindu's strokes.
Maybe to them the smell of fires and church,
Of home fires kept is something that's not birch.
