Some of My Favorite Friends

When I was a child, some of my favorite
friends were trees. I was the boy high
in the cherry tree gorging on fruit while
his mother shouted orders for a speedy

descent to terra firma. I was the lad who
hid on the sky’s side of a huge maple
branch and watched as young lovers did
the nasty behind the little knoll in the town

park. I knew where every good apple tree
grew and the best hour to ride my bike
down a certain street or alley to pluck
a gravensteen here, a transparent there,

a cluster of Chinese crab apples so sweet
they tasted like honey. Adolescent pine
trees with their branches so near the earth
were among my favorites as well. What

is there about being as high in a tree as
one can get, relaxing into it until the tree
forgets you’re there and resumes its natural
swaying in the wind? An Indian kid I knew

introduced me to an old elm tree growing
in the gully. The moss on its north side
was inhabited by thousands of tiny ferns
whose small white roots tasted like licorice.

Today my favorite tree is a Chinese elm
on our farm. It was a volunteer. I might
have cut it down with the sit-down mower
as I did with so many others over the years.

But this sprout spoke to me somehow. Today
it is at least sixty feet tall. I take a lawn chair
out there, sit a ways off and wait. Before
long the two of us are deep in conversation.

by Christopher Thomas