My Tree

The sun is setting in the horizon,
The evening breeze begins to blow,
I climb up my tree into its mighty branches,
As the stars in the east start to glow.

A few leaves fall, swirling in the breeze,
They silently dance in my eye,
As the wind carries them along,
As the sunlight begins to die.

The crickets begin to chirp,
The moonlit creatures start to emerge,
Some birds fly over the setting sun,
As the dark blanket of night starts to merge.

I feel different; one with nature,
Up here in the wind, all wild and free,
As if I am connected to the universe,
Me, a small leaf, hanging from my tree.

Explanation

My poem is centred round a large gumtree that grows in our backyard in Alice Springs.

I chose to write a poem about my tree because it is an important place that I like to go; I like to climb into its branches and be myself. The tree is part of nature and I can look out at the world from up high. The tree is a place that I can think and be alone. When I am in my tree I see all the small living creatures that use the tree as a home. I can explore, imagine and dream in my tree.

Although not a Haiku, this poem expresses my feelings in a beautiful moment. I presented my poem as a short rhyming couplet using sensory language to capture my emotions about my gumtree and how I feel when I climb the tree. I have broken it into four line stanzas otherwise known as a quatrain. The descriptive words I have chosen try to express to the reader the colours, sounds and feel that the tree gives me. I have also tried to describe myself using the analogy that I am little more than a single leaf, hanging from a branch in the universe.