The Tree House

By Jacques Fleury

 [From Fleury’s book: Chain Letter To America: The One Thing You Can Do To End Racism:

A Collection of Essays, Fiction and Poetry Celebrating Multiculturalism]

While the butterfly hovers and the bird sways…

I take tepid steps around the forest

So not to disturb the natural way of things;

Night time in the woods,

I stroll into its evening with a lantern,

So dark a night I can only see what

The light will allow;

I can feel earthly debris crunching

Beneath my feet, the sounds echo in the distance,

I see the dilapidated treehouse that

Father and I built, a once buxom structure

Now barely standing with little nurturing…

Yet still I climb the ladder leading up to it,

The rungs creak beneath  my feet,

I get into the pungent pad on the floor

And lay next to the spot where father

Once leisurely reposed while we talked into the night

Listening to at times tiresome benedictions:

The eternal noise of crickets and other cryptic night noises;

We spoke of traveling and transcending,

Navigating and never minding…

He spoke of his epistolary love with mother

And how they got together,

How glad he was when I saw light for the first time,

And how he would always be by my side,

“Promise?”

“Promise!”

“Cross your heart and hope to die?”

“Promise.”

I can hear the leaves rustling in the wind,

As a gentle swaying of the treehouse that

Father and I built rocks me to sleep…

Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc… He has been published in prestigious publications such as Spirit of Change Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Litterateur Redefining World anthologies out of India, Poets Reading the News, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at:  http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.–