Woods for Sunday Scribblings

I pick Kathy up
and we head
into the woods

first walking
up Labossiere St.
then past

the concrete factory.
Finally, we enter
the cool chapel

of green. We
scramble over rocks
that were once

part of an avalanche
until we reach
the base

of Mt. Forist.
We climb by grabbing
hold of bushes

growing on the edge
of the steep
rock face

until we are
opposite an overhang.
Then, inch by inch

we cross the gray
granite, patiently
planting our feet

and hands
into little cracks.
When we reach

the outcropping,
we sit, high above
the city, queens

surveying our realm.
I see my tiny
mother hanging

clothes on the line.
Kathy’s brother
is riding his bike.

My sister
and her friend
are playing tag.

A car turns
the corner from Fifth Avenue
and has to stop

to wait for the girls
who are playing
jump rope

to get out
of the road. All’s right
in our neighborhood.

We eat our snack,
talk about this and that,
then leave our perch

to slide down,
enter the tunnel
of woods, again,

that transforms us
from roayalty into two girls
going home.