climbing trees by kimberly stutevoss

Climbing Trees

It starts as a seed like all things in life

Growing high, reaching upward to the sky

Extending its arms in every which way

For a child, it is the best jungle gym

It stands there just begging to be climbed on

I remember climbing on trees, like this

Working my way up through to the blue sky

Swinging like a monkey from branch to branch

Crawling through its tangled hair, getting lost

Finding robins nest filled with small blue eggs

The children sing and dance around the tree

Looking up, wanting to escape this world

They jump high trying to reach the lowest

Arm being extended to them, barely

All their energy into their jumps up

Are failing but one girl succeeds and grabs

Tightly she holds on while she wrestles it

She wins and continues to climb upward

With each branch she grabs I am reminded

Of the feeling I got when I climbed up

Always out of breath, racing to the top

My heart pounding fast I thought it leap out

But anxious to reach the tippy top where

The birds sang and I would feel like the king

Of the world ruling from the highest court

I hear my daughter call my name as I

Look up to see her being king of the

World. She is ruling from the highest court.

She looks upon her subjects still jumping

to reach the lowest arm, but no success.

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Trees

BY JOYCE KILMER

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.