A part of my poetic memoir The Locust Years, this poem has been submitted to several journals and magazines by now. For whatever reason, it hasn’t been published yet. I decided to share here because I think maybe a lot of people can identify with its sentiments. What it is, is kind of a love letter to my favorite trees back home in Houston. As excruciating as most days were, I was blessed to grow up on that particular property – one that had been owned so long, it was a little oasis in the midst of all the industry growing up around it. It had a fig orchard, mulberry trees, and a small woods out back where crab apples and blackberry vines grew. Out front were 3 favorite trees that I spent a lot of time playing in, under, and with.

There was a Willow (not mentioned in this poem) with big old swooping branches that could hide me like curtains. There was that majestic, mysterious Sycamore. Then there was Crepe Myrtle.

Crepe Myrtle had smooth bark, limbs just stout enough to hold me, and during all seasons except the deepest part of winter, enough frothy pink flowers to hide in. I’d sit up there for hours and pretend I was a spy, or just watch the Union Pacific cars come in and out from the station and wish myself inside them heading somewhere far, far away.

Relationships with Trees

Grandfather Sycamore, you were
an exquisite and puzzling behemoth,
your trunk made at once of materials
hard and indestructible at the core;
a paperish substance peeling from your outer layer.

I regret I never had the nerve to climb you,
though many times I imagined
taking your firm trunk between my knees,
scaling to nestle in your branches like a bird.

I did find the nerve to climb Crepe Myrtle.
She was much smaller;
closer to my size, although still
large enough to protect me among her stout,
hard branches and bright, frothy flowers.
We made fast friends.

Sometimes while sitting in the living room,
I had the overpowering urge to run
out and climb high into her sturdy, fragrant arms;
to shield myself from rats that bite and screams
that echo through nameless nightmares.
Omens of hours yet to come.