Ruth Jewell's poem is a tender tribute to a pine tree the speaker loved as a child. She isn't treated as scenery. The speaker calls the tree "She" and gives her a voice that sings of water, earth, sun and wind. Over the course of the poem, the pine becomes a playmate, a shelter and a "home base" for games, swings and make-believe houses built from her needles and sticks.
The tree also looks after the speaker through the seasons. She shades the heat of summer, sings in the rain, and holds her branches low under snow to form a cave. The images are simple and sensory, like the dizzy "whorls of green light" seen from the swing, and they give the poem a warm, nostalgic mood. The ending turns quiet and sad. "Oh, how I miss you my friend" suggests the tree is gone, and the whole poem feels like a loving memory held onto after the loss.