You Don't Climb Trees

A Poem

YOU DON’T CLIMB TREES

You don’t climb trees, you attack them, throw yourself at them,

Since you were little, since you could swing from low branches, since height called you,

Like Frost’s boy who took the stiffness out of his father’s trees, riding them again and again,

And like Frost himself who once was and wished to be again, you and I now, our roles defined,

You climb, I catch you if you fall (not just at tree climbing).

At a park near our home you launch yourself into the tangle of a

Japanese Yew, a massive business like two giant hands reaching out of the ground,

This tree (or is it a shrub) has felt your hands before, and before, and before,

First as a tentative toddler, then a swinger of branches and now a climber, a sure foot, a sky-reacher,

The yew marks your growth.

I follow because I always follow, but tree climbing is a young girls compact now, no place for weak knees,

But if you fall, I’ll try,

But you don’t, you puzzle it through, unafraid of the rolly pollies and the daddy long legs, the sliding bark, the sharp knobs,

Just you and a yew and a dad who loses more hair watching you, and the

Sun hits your cheek and you reach for the heavens and all I can think is, how will you get down?

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House Keeping: Friends! We went on a glorious adventure Saturday, out to Frog Rock to make sure a micro-burst during a recent storm didn’t damage the precious land-mark. I didn’t have time to write that up for today, but it’s on the slate for tomorrow’s Day By Day so stay tuned. Hint: the Frog is fine, but it was a close call!