Trees

When I was ten I was not afraid
of trees.

I climbed them to the top,
standing barefoot, sap-sticky, 
a hundred feet up,
surrounded by a sea of green branches
and blue sky above.
A sapling tourist from the solemn world below.

Shaded and smothered, 
nothing grows 
through the carpet of needles
fallen in the dark cathedral, 
the orderly ranks of pines
row upon row.

I knew then 
that you had to pick
your tree carefully. 
That the lower limbs
grew soft in the darkness
and could crumble
under your feet.


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