TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown. 

When I was a small child, in the house we lived in until I was about six years old, there was a large willow tree in the backyard. I loved that tree and spent a lot of time climbing in it, hanging from its limbs, and playing in its shade.

My next childhood bedroom had a large pine tree right outside the window. My parents still live in that house, and a few years back, in a terrible wind storm, the pine came crashing down. It felt like the end of an era.  

My bedroom now looks out onto the neighbor’s two magnolia trees, which are full of big, beautiful flowers in the spring. 

Yes, the willow, the pine, and the magnolias have all made their way into my poems. They’re not just part of the landscape; they’re part of my idea of home. I think that’s why I connected so much with today’s poem. It’s a kind of love poem—to a beloved tree, and to the sense of home it created.

Hackberry
by Cecily Parks

                                           A place I love is about to disappear.
When the summer sunset drives
into the west side
                                           of our house, burning
                                                                 with a heat we’ve been warned about,

                                           I look out the two square windows
that are filled with hackberry leaves whose greens
vary according to light and wind
                       and whose shade composes a sort-of room
                                                                 for us, under the tree.

                                           It’s said that those who sleep under a hackberry
will be protected from evil spirits,
and I can’t stop thinking of how the four of us for years
                       blithely slept the sleep of the protected, as if
                                                                 there were no other sleep, and how

                                           in the daytime, the tree arranged its shade
to let hearts of sunlight fall
on the stone path underneath it. How a scar
                       on the tree’s bark looked like a brown moth
                                                                 pressed unendingly against it.

                                           For months all I’ve wanted is the blessing
of an open window. Maybe also
I’ve wanted to sleep through the night.
                       Tonight is the last night we’ll sleep
                                                                 under the hackberry whose leaves

                                         at sunset cause the walls
and floor to shimmer—
it reminds me of crying.

              You can see the tree from the whole house,  June says.
              When I was younger and walked barefoot on the sharp stones,              
                                         Calla says, I stepped on its roots because they were smooth.

              Kretzschmaria deusta,  a beautifully named fungus
                                                                 ate the roots from the inside

                                         and now what held my daughter’s weight
are columns of nothing. Now
the tips of the live oaks softly brush
              the tips of the hackberry canopy.
                                                                 I would like to believe in tenderness.

                                         Earlier today, I tried my arms 
around the tree
but they wouldn’t wrap all the way
              around and, actually, the tree scratched
                                                                 my skin, and tomorrow

                                         a crew will cut it down.
Some people call a hackberry
a junk tree or trash tree,
              throwing shade. I love the tree’s shade, and now 
                                                                 it will be gone,

                                         as will the sunlight in the shape
of love, and the evil spirits 
will do as they please with our nights.
                  How do I write this poem,  I ask my family
                                                                 as we sit together in the disappearing room.

"Hackberry" by Cecily Parks from THE SEEDS © 2025 Cecily Parks. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.