In my room, there is an open window and beyond that window, there is green. So much blinding green, covering the ground and stretching into forever, only the tiniest sliver of sky peeking through the leaves of monstrous evergreens. The sun dances across the grass, dappling the wildflowers and ferns with its late-morning glow. Large, moss-covered rocks are scattered, inviting me to sit and read a book as the slow, sticky summer days roll by.
You can’t climb any of the trees here—they’re too tall, the branches too far above the ground. The evergreens are the tallest, branches reaching up in the wind in a futile attempt to graze the sky. Then there are the deciduous trees, shorter but in possession of their own fleeting glory, soon to turn blazing oranges, yellows, and scarlets. I can already see the colors turning, slowly surrendering to fall.
But for now it’s still summer, and the backyard has that peaceful beauty that summer does, leaves slowly swaying in the wind like they’ve got all the time in the world. Beyond these trees— my trees—are more trees, and more, making it seem like behind my house is a deep forest, a never-ending stretch of sugar maples and white pines. I can almost forget, sometimes, that more houses are right nearby, more people who walk through the woods and look at the trees and think the same things that I do, take in the fragile beauty surrounding them.
It’s strange to know that in a few short weeks, the leaves on these trees will shrivel and fall to the ground, and the grass and ferns and wildflowers will be covered by a blanket of snow. The once-blue sky will turn an ashy gray. The only green that will remain will be that of the evergreens, strong and proud and tall. And so I’ll look at them and ask them if they remember the most glorious moment: deep into summer, when the sun covered the world and the backyard was beautiful and alive, and I wrote about it because I didn’t want to forget. They will nod at me in the frosty winter breeze and say that yes, they do. They
remember.
Madeline Gentile-Borowitz is a thirteen-year-old living in New Hampshire. She loves to write poems and stories, read, and spend time in nature or with friends. She has published her poetry in Cricket Magazine and in a Young Writers Project anthology. She has also published poems in The Voice, the magazine of the Young Writers Project.
"Pine Forest" by wackybadger is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse.
