Summer came. Each tree
 On my street had its own
 Scheherazade. My nights
 Were a part of their wild

 Storytelling.
  Charles Simic, “The White Room”


The best place we ever lived
had a really big tree. More than five stories
shadowed the backyard.

At first they were short
and simple: moralistic fables or fairy tales
where the monster or witch queen
gets what’s coming to her.

As we grew, they became more complicated,
but there was always a direction of narrative
flow under the rough bark.

Springtime was trashy romances; summer
was for leaving home, ready to understand
the nature of the quest.

Autumn stories were about investments,
generosity, and preparation for shortened days.
In the fell of winter, the tree spoke
of hidden strength, and hope.

We imagined the root system
like a whole other tree mirrored underground,
relentlessly mining the buried past.

On August nights, we perched in the highest
branches, under the golden apple of the moon.
A million possible endings
rippled in the warm wind.

© 2022 F. J. Bergmann