Lessons in life (Part 4 Trees need protecting)

Strange that it had grown
on the side of a sandstone slab.
A huge knarred hand reaching out
to touch another world,
held by an underground prison.
I thought of it as old,
generations had played at its wrist,
swung from its finger tips.

The rope had been robbed
from a coal mine,
It gave out black blisters
and was hung by a rumour.

The pendulum effect was magnificent,
motion sickness spun from its canopy
to the creak of a rolling Galleon.
Exposed roots collected skin and blood
from thin boned boys on summer days
that shared a look at dirty books,
before they chanced the rope
and felt the kiss of bark.

They chopped off its hand
with no one to hold it,
broke up the slab,
sealed the wound with tar,
built houses over its tomb.

I walked up the hill to see it gone,
my clothes grew with each step,
until I stood as a small boy
remembering,
how I once learned to fly.