A God… Once

The pine needles prickled
All grateful green
I reached for the next branch
Ever higher
Sap stuck to everything
My shoes, my skin, my soul
Yet, ever higher.
The massive trunks slimmed
to barely twigs.
I could feel the sway of the wind.
They don’t teach fear in 2nd grade.
Almost – ever higher.
I reached for one last branch,
barely large enough.
Green became blue.
Blue became wondrous.
I became one with the tree.
It swayed with me at the top.
Farmland and potential
lay out before me.
A quilt of green and wheat and river
Sewed by the calloused hands
of my grandfathers
“Remember thou art mortal!”,
my dog barked below me
little more than a cloud.

  • March 30, 2011