The Ellum Tree

On one side, the one with the low hanging limb,
the bark was worn off to the bare wood
from my feet scrambling vainly to haul myself up
after grabbing the limb and trying.
It was my fifth summer:
the blue sky lurked behind an enormous green ceiling,
and the old Ellum Tree let me climb at last,
a victory over an eternity's frustration.

A universe, a ship's mast, a balloon,
impossibly high frightening height I dared ascend
to master my little world.
Alien bugs crawled, threatening, cowering, fleeing
my inquisitive hungry fingers that would have
sacrificed them to my curiosity.
It wouldn't have been hard to leap into the sky and fly
to distant lands and seas,
even the moon seemed in reach from the
high swaying limbs.
At times I took fellow passengers, and we walked in the air,
defending fortresses, looking for new coastlines, scouting for Indians.

Grandma called me down: "You'll break your neck,"
and the threat of cutting off a limb to wreak
the old Ellum tree's vengeance brought me back to earth,
on the ground under the huge blue sky with puffy white clouds,
eating chocolate chip cookies and drinking milk under
bright sunshine and a summer that lasted forever.

She called an Elm tree "Ellum";
she had many strange ways of talking about things,
she came from a different planet
or a different time at least.

Half a world away today and my tree gives itself too easily:
I step on the floor and climb without sensing
to the heights.
The sky isn't as big, the clouds are smaller, the heat kept away,
and the window reflects a fat, bald guy
who looks like Grandpa.
Surrounded by people who are no playmates, no fellow dreamers:
bullies pushing each other out of the tree to
fall splat on the sidewalks below.
The dreams in these branches are farther away,
the magic's too weak,
the perch is too steady.
The fortress is unsafe, the ship can't really sail, the Indians close in.

The Ellum tree is gone forever,
Grandma, the house, and the dreams.
My heart still climbs its heights though my hands are soft and empty,
remembering where I should be, what my quests were,
and who filled my life.