She climbs trees for the simple joy of climbing trees,
The challenge of the difficult ascent, the god-like heights,
And she’s in her late sixties, far beyond tom-boy excuse.
Doing what she’s always done, with long-honed skills.
This erstwhile nursing trainee once raised eyebrows
Playing Tarzan’s Jane in Hagley Park, raises them still.
Women may scale climbing walls: the bleakest mountains
Which is laudable when closing on three score and ten.
But women don’t climb trees. Somehow it isn’t right.
This very same taboo is settled on we older men.
Today, none near to see, I fell prey to the urge.
High in the leafy crown toyed with by wind, we met.