The seat appears to be wooden,
maybe 4x4 oak.
No chance for it to split
over years of raucous play or
empty sway in rain, snow,
or summer sun.
Secure with knotted ends
of thick gnarled rope,
the swing is strong enough
to withstand endless hours
of flight.
Above,
the tree’s brawny limb
is clearly in sync with
the resolute mood
of the breeze, defined
solely by the sing-song swaying
of the girl on the swing.
Her legs reach forward,
pushing into the air, toward me.
I see her buckled shoes and colored ankle socks.
The skirt of her dress is plaid,
fluttering against her knobby knees
that extend tight and sky ward.
Silently I beckon her to me.
Yet, her face, fresh in adolescence,
bathed in sparkled sunlight
and arbor shadows
points triumphantly upward
to where her future
connects to memory
and disappears like fading stardust
along generations of horizons.
The girl swinging, chestnut tendrils waving,
small hands gripping the rope,
needs only a push
to glide higher to her dreams,
to go up! up!
into her hopes, to be free
in a timeless now where
her spirit is liberated,
ageless at last,
beyond the gilded frame and polished glass
where the photograph, only,
is bound.
And I, her daughter,
seesawing not quite so courageously
toward my own eternity,
contemplate her flushed smile
and find myself envious of my Mother’s
undaunted eagerness to fly.