POETRY - JOURNAL ENTRY 1 - CLIMBING TREES
Give a kid a cardboard box
and it will become for him
a clubhouse
with secret knocks and passwords
or a rocket ship to the moon.
And when it's old
he'll smash out the ends,
climb inside ...
pretending …
… to be an army tank,
mowing down the unseen enemy,
the bully up the road.
I had a friend
when I was nine.
We made a pact
to be friends for life.
How foolish I was
to think that relationships
endure.
Even when I was alone
in later years
I could not reach to him …
He had changed so radically
no words
could renew the bond
we had made as children.
There was a tree
in our neighborhood.
An old, majestic oak
we called "Big Brownie."
In its trunk nails were driven
two or three in a cluster,
like footholds
in a mountain.
I would take those winding stairs,
follow them high
through the twisted maze
of branches.
Up,
as far as I could
until I came to this small small fork
far above the houses…
There I'd sit for hours,
separated from family
and superficial friends. …
Fearful
when the wind blew
too swiftly.
I trembled
with the tree
in harmony
as a storm approached.
© 1998,2021 Gary Browe, All Rights Reserved