Figure / Ground Confusion

My friends and I
have come down to the copse to play.
We'll start by climbing trees. As I approach
I see the trees between the spaces, and I see
how spaces go much further back
and higher than the trees. I'm thinking now...
if I could climb the spaces
I could get above my friends -
it's a sort of game I often play:
a total redesign of how this old world works.

The trees get narrower as they rise higher -
the spaces therefore open out.
I stare up through the spaces,
imagining myself
above the canopy and looking down
from what were ash and rowan, but are now
enormous redwoods threatening the sky.

Now they're higher than a boy could climb
and as I look the spaces are the solids now,
the trees are open spaces, dark background
shapes that have begun to shape new thoughts.
The solid spaces and the empty trees
reverse the natural order,
but which is which depends upon my focus.
My friends are motifs on a tapestry,
motionless shapes that I will overtake.
This happened all without my thought -
now that's what I must call surreal.