Once upon a South Street time in a whimsy close to me

I scraped my knobby knees climbing up my favorite tree.

It’s a old worn out location that my imagination goes each time

I worry or I wander or I need to ease my weary mind.

My inner child conjures up those days just like a prayer:

Dropping helicopter seeds, naked toes kicking the air

Peeling from course black bark cicada’s molt of gold

Watching over cornfields shimmering with a summer glow.

Little me didn’t know the world beyond what she could see

Instead all she knew to be true was the cradle of that tree.

So when I get lost in it — that world that sighs and grieves–

I go back to what feels safe and sure: roots and bark and leaves.