I wrote this poem after a springtime stroll with my 6-year-old daughter. It is about a tree, but really it about her.
I wrote the poem into the journal I keep for her and I share it here in my Letters to my Children series.
The oaks are old and massive.
Their spreading roots grip the slope green with wild blackberry, poison ivy and honeysuckle.
My daughter follows me down the wide path carved through the thorns and toxins where the long lofty bows swing low over the hillside.
Another generation of leaves is unfurling.
Pure, vibrant, young and unaware of the 100-tree-rings-worth of leaves gone before them.
We tilt our heads toward the tree’s sunlit top from the inside out, like looking through a ribcage from the classroom skeleton’s ankles.
A hundred branches swoop and sprawl and sway, each with a thousand tissue paper leaves luminous afore a blue sky.
Simple. Honest. Cheerful.
Wind sends the leaves fluttering and her sunshine hair flying.
She giggles and stretches her lithe limbs to relish the moment.
Soon the branches will flesh out, summer-plump with broad dark leaves;
full of mystery and complexity;
Inky depths skirted with a stain-glass crown, luminous afore a blue sky;
I wrap my arm around my girl. She leans in.
Cheerful. Honest. Simple. Supple.
We drink in the fleeting springtime.
Someday, I will look back with happy longing on the sweet days under the oaks when the sun shone through them.
