My Best Friends Poem by Jay L. Morris

A long ago when I wore youth
when not in school nor at chore
I spent all my day at woods.
Wandering here and there
searching for anything new.
The largest of the trees,
their names occurred to me
and I knew how they felt
about the birds in their branches,
their love of the winds
and the cooling clean of the rain.
How they feared the axe men,
their bitter rivalry with the fields.
Often I would ask my friends
questions about how I should live.
They told me how not to be lonely,
how to stand tall and strong,
To hold my arms wide open
how to give shelter to all comers
when the storm raged it's worst.
Then, best ways to bend my limbs
so as not to break them when tried.
The tree named Henry was my best friend
The largest and the wisest tree.
many a Saturday I spent
resting upon his aged root,
seeking his counsel and code
to turn into my own.

Henry, Arnie, Walter and Jake
are all gone now, supplanted
by a soccer field with goal posts
chalk lines and a million
billion blades of green grass.
And when I try to ask them a question,
they just stare up at me stupidly
refusing to see the truth of
how the Wood and field battle
had been fixed and so I've forever lost
the woods I loved
and the trees that raised me,
with my parents help, of course.
And everyone knows that
I miss them all the time.