The fallen tree
My petite white shoes, scuffed with chocolate marks from the mud I went sloshing in makes squishy sounds as I cross the mammoth tree that connects my backyard with the wilderness beyond the Creek. Today and every day before, the trees serves as a personal balance beam that allows me to run across, tiptoe across, and even skip across when I am adventurous.sometimes it serves as a comfortable seat or even a bed that I can lay on to gaze up at the winding tree limbs. It is my favorite place.
This day, I decide to amble gently across due to the muck beneath my shoes. I tolerate the wilderness on the forbidden side as it quietly but incessantly begs me to come over. I make my way across the balance beam over and over, back and forth. I watched the Creek water trickled down and around, passing through the rocks roofed with wet, dark green moss. The current slides below the overgrown roots that were exposed as was removed by the ever flowing stream.
I lay down with my face to the sky. My arm falls over the big roundness of the tree. I let my arms sway as the gentle breeze passes through my fingers. The forbidden jungle laughs at me. Fear of entering is an ever present thought in the back of my mind. I tell myself that when dad will step off the other side of this tree; but not today. Today is a day for relaxing.
The wild and colossal tree as playground for many; not just mean. I watch as red fire ants across in a long line, rushing hurriedly towards whatever destination they have for the day. Sometimes ladybugs land on my tree. Mosquitoes bite often. Even in the daytime the coolness of trees draw the mosquitoes out. It is worth the itches to see the butterflies flutter beneath tree limbs along the Creek. Their wings brightly displaying their exquisite in this, each unlike the one before.
Most kids make shapes out of clouds in the sky. I prefer to make images with the leaves of the trees and the myriad of lines that curve this way and that along my favorite fallen tree. I turn over and lay on my stomach, smelling Creek water that holds the tadpoles. It smells squishy and green. I smell air that snakes through the patches of leaves. It smells fresh and blue. The air is quite different on this old log. It feels heavy on my lung and yet easy to breathe out. My eyes close and again I wonder just how old this tree is. Hundreds, maybe millions of years old.