Trees by Mary Oliver

Heaven knows how many trees I’ve climbed…when my body was still in a climbing way.

How many afternoons, especially Windy ones,

I sat perched on a limb that rose and fell with every invisible blow

Each tree was a green ship in the wind-waves,

every branch a mast

every leafy height a happiness that came without even trying.

I was that alive

and limber

now I walk under them-cool… beloved….

the household of such tall, kind sisters.