just a treetop away.

a “sit w/ me” poem i wrote on the back of a watercolor i did in the little haven in my childhood backyard a year ago (6/16/24), back when i was still living there. i dipped my brushes into the little stream going by my hammock, and drew the scene from which i was sitting.

🌿

looking up at the bottoms of the leaves
hanging at the top of the trees

I only see the world just a fingertip away.

Full of hopes and dreams and possibilities,
images of a would be could be future—
just a treetop away.

I find that freedom—that future
in the way the bright white light of the sky
peers through the branches,
shining down like bright

threads hanging down from the yarn of life.

Maybe it’s a ladder—
maybe a rope to safety.

Maybe it’s an opportunity for a way out—
to grab onto the rope,
climb myself to the top
and soar above the trees.

No longer living off the threads of sun
that rustle it’s way through the dense bushels
of reality to find the foundation
of a simple creek

and a girl lovesick for a life
she has yet to live.

Even living under the hood of time,
expectations and sorrows,
beauty is found from
from the trickles of the water
of life and death,

from the stones that keep
the path of water flowing,
and the toppled trees that make passage
for the critters that pass by within the hour.

I wonder if bugs—
they too look up at the underside of the leaves
of the plants

and sit by and dream
of soaring above
and finally

escaping.

🌿

thanks for reading (: 🫶