Poem: "My Favorite Treehouse"
This poem came out of the March 5, 2013 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by Anthony Barrette.
My Favorite Treehouse
There are the ones I see in pictures --
this one rustic and ramshackle,
that one like a castle in the sky,
another like a gleaming seashell
pressed around the trunk of the tree.
There is one made of weird roots and branches
so that it seems to grow from the tree itself;
I like that one quite a lot.
I remember the one my parents made for me,
the first story a flat platform reached by a rope ladder,
then a wooden ladder leading up to the loft
high in the branches of the maple tree.
It was the wind's kingdom, there,
where my heart was a borrowed balcony
looking out over the infinite city of the sky.
Then too, there was another tree-place,
not a house at all, but simply a hollow,
vast and inhabited, within a sequoia
where fire had carved a place for itself.
The low front door was almost hidden by ferns,
just large enough to creep inside and sit
on a carpet of shredded red bark
and listen to hidden living things
scritching and chittering high above.
We make treehouses.
Trees make whole ecosystems.
Beside their patient craftsmanship
we're nothing more than toddlers
making mudpies on a riverbank
and getting everything all grubby --
but eh, it's fun,
and the planet is washable.