A Boy's Fort Poem by Randall Vanlandingham

Fingernail dirt,
Pounding nails until fingers hurt,
Fixing that fort,
Climbing pines' mid-branch's small perch,
Sticky sap drips,
Welding skin with sweat and bark-bits
Clothesline pulley,
Lifting high our climbing ladder.

Brass telescope,
Seeking birds or boy-dug trenches,
Mud-ball ammo,
Keeping roving warriors distant,
Site of thinking,
Playing and growing with close friends;
High home of love,
Being made of my own making.

Place of refuge,
Escaping homework or home's work,
Endless these days,
Flying away and now all gone,
This hideaway,
Shielding vast treasures of boyhood;
That's a boy's fort,
Proving a boy's worth in effort.