Granda's Tree House

I'm sitting in the garden

With my small son on my knee

He looks up at me with big brown eyes

And says “Tell me about Granda's tree”

 

My father planted a tree

In nineteen forty two

He nurtured it and hadn’t bargained

On just how big it grew

 

When I was just seven years old

I had a love of climbing trees

Many times mum put plasters

On my bloodied and skinned knees

 

I can remember one day

Wearing my new party dress

Peering in through the window

A grubby bedraggled mess

 

I’d climbed as high as I could go

Then heard a quite loud crack

The branch it snapped in two

And I landed on my back

 

I’d excelled myself on this occasion

You could say I’d gone the whole hog

I’d landed on a little offering

Left by next doors dog

 

I remember as a little girl

My father built me a house in the tree

A sturdy wooden house with windows

Especially for me

 

When I was in my tree house

I could be almost anywhere

In a tropical jungle

Or in a cave hiding from a grizzly bear

 

Hanging onto my rope ladder

With a plastic cutlass on my hip

I could be looking for buried treasure

My tree house a pirate ship

 

Underneath the carpet

In the middle of the floor

My father had lovingly made me

A little brass-hinged trap door

 

Whenever I got fed up

Of being stuck inside

I’d open up that trap door

And go straight down the slide

 

Sometimes I would stand

For maybe half an hour

And pretend I was a princess

Imprisoned in an ivory tower

 

Some days I’d be a cowgirl

On a wild west ranch

And sometimes I’d pretend to be

A monkey swinging from a branch

 

One day I picked some flowers

And mum asked what they were for

I said “they are for my cottage

With roses around the door”

 

My son is looking wistful

Then he smiles at me

He says “mummy I would love

To see my Granda’s tree”

 

Tears come into my eyes

My son’s smile turns into a frown

I say “The tree's no longer there

The new owners chopped it down”

 

My son says it is sad

That the tree's no longer there

But no-one can destroy the memories

That my son and I share