The Last Swing
by Priscilla Turner Spada

He threw the ropes over the branch,
then attached them to the seat.
When the knots were nice and neat,
he pushed the swing through the expanse
of open space under the oak trees.
It almost reached as high as the leaves.

He delighted in the joy
of his daughter, and the boys
and girls who’d gather on each day
and play until the sun’s last rays,
under the oak trees’ browning leaves,
now turning crisp from the first freeze.

Soon a silence would replace
the happy chatter in that space.
The well-worn groove under the swing,
from the push-off of small feet,
would be iced from winter’s sting;
the aging oaks engulfed in sleet.

Time’s gone by now, he can’t see
that swing, his daughter, those oak trees.



 

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