Daily Prompt: Ode to a Playground

A place from your past or childhood, one that you’re fond of, is destroyed. Write it a memorial.

Oh, no!… It’s gone!…

Daddy had erected it in the twin trees that stood maybe 4 feet apart…

The roots had actually grown together and the tree tops were mingled with each other…

A 4″ X 4″ board laid upon the arches of the main limbs that made their way up into the entwined branches and leaves of the two trees…

A chain had been wound and secured to the 4 X 4 … and dangled to just my height for sitting between the trees…

A board seat made from leftover 2″ X 6″ wide wood where my Dad had been building our home…

I decided to draw and paint from memory…

my rendition of this wonderful “playground”…

I’ll title it:

“Swing … Made By Daddy”

You do have to remember I was just a little girl… not, even in school yet…

My legs were short… I was learning to move them back and forth…

under and out… as I pumped this magical swing higher and higher!…

The bottom trunks of the trees were white-washed by my Mom… I remember peeling the little paint pieces off of the bark… Supposed to keep bugs and decay from forming…

The seat was replaced a few times… the chain making an indention into the wood…

I would swing so high… day dreaming about what my life was going to be like…

My mom sometimes pushing me… singing little songs to me… “Playmate” being one of my favorites!

My toes would touch the hanging branches… A feeling of such exhilaration… a free feeling… an almost out-of-body experience…

I drew and painted “me” …

Title:

” “Playmate”… come out and play with me!”

The little girl… grew and so did the trees…

It became tight between the twin trees… My elbows starting to bump… the sides of the trees…

When and how did this happen???

My days with the trees had come to and end… I was growing up… teen years set in… and my day dreams became more of a reality setting…

My Mom sat an old iron rim of a wagon wheel in between the trees…

A sad day for me… but, as all things…

we had our time and changes evolved…

The twin trees didn’t stop growing… just like the little girl… The wheel became embedded into the trees… forever to be a part of them… and the branches touched by toes were so far up that it seemed they would reach the sky…

I also drew /painted the old wagon wheel…

Title:

“Embedded with Memories“

So farewell to “My Childhood Swing”…

As the wagon wheel embedded itself into your trunks…

You embedded wonderful memories inside me…

Related articles

• Field Finds! The Hugging tree and other interesting root patterns (sharonhelleman.wordpress.com)
• Greatest Of News Tree With Many Colors (fineartamerica.com)
• Ancient Bickford Trees (sharonhelleman.wordpress.com)
• The Philosopher Red Meets the Killer Trees of Costa Rica (coyotero2112.wordpress.com)
• Peeling Bark May Be Appealing (philadelphia.cbslocal.com)
• My Love Affair With Trees (barbarasinclair.com)
• Daily Prompt: Ode to a Playground (rolbos.wordpress.com)
• Life’s Trunks, Limbs, Branches and Leaves (johnnae.net)
• A Tree Falls in Brooklyn (thelightheartedwoodworker.com)
• Daily Prompt; Ode to a Playground (terry1954.wordpress.com)