In the Shade

Under the shade of

an old gnarled tree,

knotty and twisted

with the arthritis of

age etched in the bark,

sat a young boy picking

at the dirt.

A hot summer breeze

riffled the leaves and

creaked the branches

but brought no cooling

relief to the boy in the

shade, picking at the

dirt.

A picnic party of adults

was taking place across

the clearing, they were drinking

and dancing and joking and

smoking, and doing those thing

adults shouldn’t do. Things the boy

couldn’t do.

The boy leaned back in the shade

and felt the rough old bark against

his skin. It was coarse and sharp but

not uncomfortable. The boy looked

up through the twisted branches

as the hot summer air brushed the

leaves to and fro.

The sun sparkled and dappled

in the flapping leaves, the tree

groaned slightly in the wind,

the boy looked back over at his

mother at the party, dancing with

some guy who wasn’t his dad,

just some guy the boy didn’t know.

The boy folded his small arms over his

scabby knees and pulled them up to his

chest. He rested his forehead

on his forearm, but it was too

sweaty. He was the only kid at

the party, but he wasn’t the only

child.

The old tree creaked in the heat,

the boy looked down in the dirt

around the thick stitch-work of roots

trailing through the dry ground, he pressed

his hand into the cool dirt and let it

linger. He thought he could feel a

heartbeat in the ground.

The boy turned from the base of the

tree and felt along its rough hide,

the boy could swear he could hear

whispering. He pressed his face close to

the bark and held his breath but it

was quiet except for the gentle creak

of the branches above.

There were yelling voices from

across the clearing, adults fighting,

the boy’s mother yelling for him, that

they were leaving, while two other men

shoved at each other, neither one was

the boy’s dad.  The boy felt the tree once

more, gave it a pat on its knobby side.

The boy ran from out of the shade at his

mother’s beckoning into the hot

summer sun. They’d get in the car and

drive back home to the city where there

were no shade trees to listen to,

no old souls to lean on.