 Click on picture for larger view |
When I was a boy growing up on a small
farm in Northeastern Oklahoma, there
stood a big, old sycamore tree, known
simply as "The Big Tree." Many happy
hours were spent playing in and around
that old tree and today, more than 50 years
later, that same old tree still stands and
beckons. The view to the left is how the old
tree looked in 1966. It looked very much
the same when I first saw it in 1941 and it
looked much the same in 2000.
Someday one of the fierce Oklahoma storms will take it down and if I'm still alive I will mourn it's passing - but only for a moment - for, after all, it's only a TREE. |
ABOVE THE WORLD
Copyright © by Jim C. Carpenter
There stands an aging sycamore tree
Beneath whose branches strong,
As a lad I played in the cooling shade,
And harkened the bluebird's song.
Among it's branches and leaves I climbed,
To its spacious lofty crown.
And there in awe, at the sights I saw,
In wonder I gazed around.
And there I scanned the valleys wide,
While puffy clouds rolled by.
And solace filled the distant hills
Beneath a tranquil sky.
A lowly bluebird circled 'round,
And seemed surprised to see,
A kid so high, that couldn't fly,
On the capstone of his tree.
A gentle breeze was the only sound
To fill that noiseless day.
And every care I had to bear
Seemed very far away.
And now as an old and wistful man
With hair both gray and thin,
Oh! what I'd give if I could live
Above the world as then.
I'd like to climb to my favorite branch
And to view the hill and glen,
And live once more as I did before
And to be a kid again.
But, today, the old tree stands alone
And it beckons, as in our prime.
But its branches strong, have weathered long
And it's too danged old to climb.