A Childhood Friend

 
A childhood friend
‘Tis an Oak, old and majestic, hundreds of years if a day,
Standing in my childhood grove.
 
T’was a playground of sorts, for our daydreams and fancies,
As sure as the tides of the sea.
 
We skittered into branches, making believe we were monkeys
In search of the perfect perch,
Tossing oak helicopters we’d collected on our scamper,
Solely to witness their flight.
 
Often we’d stay earthbound and dawdle, searching for oak poppers
To stomp with our bare little feet.
In childish giggle we’d bubble, when we’d won the prize,
Our popper shouting loudest of all.
 
Our mothers would call, it was time to go.
Scurry home now, we’d run, fast as little legs could,
While our Great Oak kept watch, on our playground in the grove.
 
One day, in a moment, I don’t know when, we quit playing at our old, lumbering Oak.
Bigger things than this oak occurred into our lives, like boys and school and then,
 
Countless years have drifted by since these childhood days, and it saddens me to say,
Try as I must, not a memory, have I, of the moment we ventured away.