Birch: A Ghazal

I recently learned that Björk is a common 
girl's name in Sweden, and  it also means birch.

Once, some students were playing a game in which they named
each of their professors after a singer or a band; and I got Björk.

I was amused, and wondered:  did it mean they imagined me
with a live swan draped around my neck like a scarf, like Björk;

or thought I was cool, avant-garde, in a class of my own?
In a forest of elms, oaks and chestnuts, a fragrant silver birch.

Bright green and saw-toothed at the edges, leaves turn
amber in fall. In fading light, a grove of silvery birch

is beautiful. Lorca, who taught about the spirit and power of duende, 
was dragged out of a house and shot in an olive grove, not birch.