Kicking the the granola bars out 
of grandfather trees in my
pink and black canvas shoes.

I learned well about the art of
flying from the swing sets that squeaked
like my jaw and my knees-- 
the swing set at the park between
the roller skating rink 
and the ball field on the shoulder-
of the shrugging hill where
we used to big kings of some mountain
-- smack-crack of the aluminum baseball
bat in the dust with the
ping-ping-pang of tree hairs--
Oh! I was the blushy-flush autumn
that thinks she's becoming 
an orange creamsicle for another round of
heat to teem her toes in green--
mistakes the red lip stick
in her hair for the sun-- 
she's older now and grandfather
trees look especially wise
all tangled in the park. I push
myself into flight-- I'm not thrown 
by dadies or dinosaurs anymore--
I'm a close-eyed angel-crow with
the moth wings in my canvas shoes.
I land like leaves. I broke pieces of
honey granola bars-- the manna--
the mutch-cracker-- those granola bars 
we all used to think would make
us strong enough to propel ourselves
over the bar of the swing-- break
the chain and go up and and up and up
and just keep going until we found ourselves
entangled in the rotted elbows of a grandfather
tree still telling us stories about
when autumn was colder and when 
girls wouldn't wear ripped jeans
and canvas shoes or stuff their pockets with 
granola bar wrappers. 
I haven't thought about swinging 
but I did a lot back then
and I thought about kicking the trees
and if I was really as high as a tree
and if I would ever fall like a swing
and if everything could as simple
as the pumping of you legs into
flight-- 

Why don't we use more swings 
and less airplanes and bird-wings
and autumns?

Because there are fathers to push
us higher-- and grandfathers to 
catch our legs when we kick them
and granola bars in our jeans
so that we can pretend that we're
climbing a mountain-- 
even if only in autumn.