Or maybe as a child

Riding my bike across the street

I never looked up to realize

How through the thick leaves

The pavement was shaded dark

And Through the impenetrable green,

A black shadow was cast.

Maybe, as a child,

called over to help pick walnuts off a neighbor’s front lawn and just throw a football around,

I was simply too distracted,

bent over to scoop up the seeds

and to scramble for the fumbled ball to notice the shade

being cast by the cover of wide leaves, stories above.

Years later

When I finally did look up I did not

Find the memories of the dog that would not stop chewing at the fence

Or Maxwell racing Duncan around the house on his 4 wheeler.

I thought of the trees, and the roots of the trees

Slowly over the years stretching deeper

And pulling more and more life out

of the rocky missouri soil

Until after months of drought a fresh breeze would blow in  heavy clouds to revive the earth.

And the bark, chipped away

Pelted by tossed rocks and rotted Walnuts

Chewed and scratched by families of squirrels.

I think if she might have lived the trees would have shed their leaves In celebration,

a life spared,

So pure sunlight could shine onto the Asphalt

Warming it

and bleaching it

Making it

gray and

perfect...

But the cool shadows remain.

To look up at the branches

Is to forget the past