My mom’s parents lived in a big old farmhouse just outside Sturgis, MI when I was little. We visited a few times a year, and always spent a week there together in the summer. It was a magical place, and my longing for it returns sometimes unbidden. My grandpa hung a wooden swing with chain links from one of the pine trees. That swing is burned into my memory, the thought of it filling me with a powerful love for the things and the people I’ve lost.
This place reminds me of you
Of how, as a little girl,
I would wander down the hill, counting pine cones,
Sit on the tree swing and look at the pool.
The tree was tall and fragrant
And it shaded me from any worry
Because I was safe there, with you,
In summer, when days are lazy
And there is nothing to do
But jump from rock to rock along the driveway
Pretending each one is a faraway planet
Or wander under the fruit trees behind the brick wall
Or among your gardens as the sun sank low.
I wonder now if you can see me
If you’d be proud of me
If you’d smile, watching me swing high into the sky
Thinking of that pine tree
Where I was safe and loved.
The Quick and the Dead 