The Tree

Last night, I climbed a tall maple tree. I was asleep at the time, of course, for otherwise I wouldn't have been able to climb it, at my age. Nonetheless, I had climbed this tree many times before, and sat in the crotch of the last thick limbs before the final branches and leaves touched the sky. The tree was the first in a row of four and stood on the northern corner of 28th and Salmon Street. You had to jump for the first low limb and swing your leg over, then stand on that limb and shimmy up the trunk till you reached the next limb. The higher you climbed, the closer the limbs were, but the higher you went, the thinner they became. At last, you found yourself higher than the second story of the house, our house, and you could sit where the last branching of the trunk made a seat and look down over the houses and streets, sidewalks, yards, fences and gardens and lack nothing from the perspective of a robin or a bumblebee. How wonderful it was to climb a tree. How wonderful to reside as long as you wanted in the sky.