"I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches." - Robert Lee Frost- from 'Birches'.
If you have never "swung a birch", it is something to try at least once in your lifetime. In Spring, Maine birch trees are pliable and if you can figure out how to get up a fairly sturdy one, and can get up past the part where the tree begins to bend naturally, you can hold on, and then be gently brought back to Earth. It is probably like the way a parachute feels, though the closest I have ever gotten to that was on the parachute ride at Knott's Berry Farm. So I can't say for sure if the feeling of swinging a birch is the same as the feeling of floating in a parachute. What Robert Frost and I have in common is that we both have felt a birch tree gently bring us from sky to sod.
In my youth, I swung birches every Spring. It has been a long while since those carefree, barefoot days, but I remember the exhilaration well. Like I was Mary Poppins with my umbrella or something.
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