Those numbers Ralph Eugene Meatyard

The Tree-Climber's Mother, 1964

 

He wants to know the names of trees

the secrets they whisper to the night

and the soft-voiced things that sip their dew.

She cannot keep him in, cannot dissuade him

from venturing higher, Keds in the barked joints,

toes braced in knotty holes. She waits

for the dreadful shudder

of his dropped weight at the root,

a sound that never comes.

This child is more sure in the trees,

their random freeform limbs,

than on the straight segmented walk that

runs by the drugstore, First Baptist Church

and the bus stop in that small town.

Still he is up in that dizzy oak no father

and no wings and she wonders

are they whispering of her failure

to hold him, grounded,

and what they will do if he falls.

 

Nancy A. Henry

Done