Swinging

The grape vines in the woods were the best kinds of swings.

They were better than our old tires knotted with thick rope to tree branches. Too heavy for any real movement, we had to be pushed by someone in order to gain momentum. Plus, there was always the threat that the branch carrying both the weight of the tire and a child would snap. They were never truly comfortable, and hot days were the worst: where our legs curled around the knotted tie, rubber burned our bare thighs. Sometimes, newer tires that still had thread, left marks.

They were even better than the “real swings” in our neighborhood playgrounds. These swings were made of flat wooden boards and thick chains that rusted, staining our hands when we held tight. Yes, sometimes, we would pump high, pushing our whole bodies forward while trying to pretend that we could fly, but mostly, we sat still and slowly twirled around and around and around, until we let go, spinning in circles until we grew dizzy.

Our grape vines wrapped around tree trunks and branches, so tight, that we had to yank them free. Still, the tug of war was worth the effort, as the vines never broke under our play. They were more than just swings, as they helped us dangle from branches or climb ragged tree trunks. Our hands, already calloused from chain swings or hot rubber, never minded the rough vines.

What we didn’t know then but now have to consider is that they may not have been grape vines, but some kind of invasive species that were originally used for aesthetic purposes around homes. The plant quickly escaped into forested areas, including our beloved Pennsylvania woods.

What we didn’t know was what we loved so much, what we fought to tug free for our own play, actually killed the trees, the vines thickening and slowly wrapping around them until they cut deep into the bark, until they smothered them.

We didn’t know that something we loved could do so much damage to the world around us.

Karen J. Weyant’s first full-length collection, Avoiding the Rapture was published last fall by Riot in Your Throat press. Her poems have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Copper Nickel, Harpur Palate, Fourth River, Lake Effect, Rattle, River Styx and Slipstream. She lives, reads and writes in Northern Pennsylvania but is an Associate Professor of English at Jamestown Community College in Jamestown, New York.