To Fly

Childhood summer rememberances: avoiding the long story with some kind of poetry.

On the side of our house
Outside my bedroom window
Lived a humongous weeping willow tree

Seemed a thousand feet tall to me

On many a summer day
All the kids I can remember knowing
My brothers and me too
We’d climb as near to the top
As the tree’s limbs would allow
Then we’d leap

Our flight cushioned as we flew
By long willowy branches
As we'd slip and glide
All
The way
Down
To the ground

We’d climb that tree
Again
In a race back up to the top
Time after time after time
All day long
That tree entertained us

Each new leap
A delightful quest
A search for the fastest, smoothest glide path
From the very tippy-top
To the ground

For those few fleeting moments
On many a summer’s day
From the top of the Weeping Willow tree
Till our feet touched the ground
We pretended we knew
What it was like
To Fly