My Tree Poem by Brooke Harris

My tree is hard and rough to touch.
It is soft and flexible in my hands.
It is strong enough to climb in, and
it is soft enough to jump in.
I run my fingers along the bark,
tracing the deep groves and hard ridges.
My tree is old and had been here my whole life.
Its bark tells a story of my childhood.
Its leaves have sheltered my since I can remember,
softly falling on my upturned face and body.
There are days I sit with my back against it,
making shapes in the clouds, and there are
nights I rest in it, contemplating the stars.
Propped inside the cage of branches and sea of leaves,
lay an old tree-house from my youth.
When I want to be alone, I rush to its silent prison.
Here the earth stands still, and the birds sign me melodies.
The grass sways in the breeze and the leaves shudder in the air.
I breathe deeply of my tree, smelling it’s earthy
bark and veiny leaves. My tree smells like home and
reminds me of happy days spent picking it’s
apples and braiding my hair with the flowers surrounding its base.
But there is also a dark, broken side to my little house,
as there is with everything in this world. My tree’s house
has shared my guilt and sorrow, my hurt and pain.
It’s floors have soaked my tears in, deeply, trying to
erase the unhappiness I sometimes have to let myself feel.
Because if I don’t then I am not human,
if I don’t then I can never move on, stuck only in the past.
My tree is big and strong, and always there for me.
I love my tree.