The Tallest Oak Tree

Once upon a time I was a small child. I ran up to the biggest oak tree and stared up at the tallest branch. I imagined what it would like to be able to climb that big oak and to hang an ole wooden swing and swing from the tallest branch. Swinging and swinging and swinging until the sun would go down at the end of a long lazy summer day. I reached for the clouds with my tippy toes and imagined who I would marry and how many children I would have. I even named my children and decided what color hair they’d have. One day I moved far away from the ole oak tree and then I noticed that a lumberjack had come and cut off the ole rickety branches. He pruned back my favorite tree and let the other branches have a fighting chance. It looked so bare and lonely for many years until another little girl found her way to it on a warm summer day. Another little girl with a big imagination and new branches with shiny leaves. She had hung her own wooden swing from the highest branch and then she began to dream. So she dreamed and she dreamed and she dreamed all summer long as she sang amongst its leaves. She conjured up what her life would be and she exercised her gifts of creativity. All from the tallest branch of that ole oak tree. gwendolen rix 7-24-16