The Swinging Tree
2025, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
“Once there was a tree…
And she loved a little girl.”
I drag Google Maps’s orange figure over faded streets,
and an out-of-date satellite photograph blooms:
one skinny, solitary sapling,
my tree, waiting in silence.
I am five again, stepping from the car,
eyes meeting her twig-thin arms,
roots trembling in hard California clay.
She was the scrawniest on the block,
yet hope rustled through her fingers.
“But time went by…
And the girl got older.”
Spring after spring she learned extravagance:
pink petals pirouetting past the porch,
blossoms bold as birthday confetti.
We charted her rise against garage shingles,
tied a rope swing to her widening heart,
let laughter sway between trunk and sky.
Then third-grade miles
only a few streets,
but farther than a child could spell.
Through the rear window I waved
while asphalt rolled like years;
I pictured her smiling,
cherries still cupped in her crown,
certain I’d return.
“But the girl stayed away for a long time…
And the tree was sad.”
Now, grown, I scroll instead of swing,
reading under stranger branches,
drawing shadows on new pages,
yet every soft summer breeze
that rustles her petals
remembers where to find me.
This summer I’ll walk back,
let a single blossom land in my hair,
sit at her roots with stories and silence,
and she will not ask for anything
only lean a little closer.
“And the girl did…
And the tree was happy.”
Maybe I am too heavy to swing,
and maybe I am too old to play-pretend family under her shade,
but I won’t say goodbye to her warm embrace.
Maybe I can sit beside her,
and maybe we will be happy.