Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 54-57
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
- This appreciation of life doesn't mean he isn't curious. The speaker still wonders about the limits of life and tests out where life ends and heaven begins.
- Line 54 has a funny wording that needs to be pointed out: "I'd like to go by…" Usually people talk like this about their own death: "I'd like to go in my sleep." So it seems like the speaker is saying that he'd like to go to heaven by climbing a tree.
- However in line 56 he says "Towards heaven," so he doesn't actually want to get to heaven just yet.
- In other words, to quote reggae legend Peter Tosh, "Everybody want to go to heaven, / Nobody want to die."
- Instead the speaker wants a peek at heaven from the top of the tree, then gently return to his normal life.
Lines 58-59
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
- The speaker is pleased with this resolution. He likes the idea of a vacation from the troubles of life, as long as it is only vacation and not a permanent situation.
- The glimpse at the world from a new perspective would be rejuvenating.
- He concludes, like he did in lines 52 and 53, that life's pleasures (like birch swinging) are enough to make life worth living.