AN ODE FOR MOTHER - Jasmin Pittman Morrell

If I were an eastern hemlock, rooted in one of Southern Appalachia’s shady coves, my growth a pondering, 800 year-long ascent, would I then know how to face a mother’s death? It seems both sorrow and joy originate from the same place in my body, a space just above my breastbone where the swell stems, and there are times when I cannot tell the difference. If I were a hemlock, the soft quills of my branches gently raised skyward, I would know how to live evergreen, even as the world around me fell into the ground, again and again. Each time she calls, I wonder if it will be the last time I feel the geography of her voice. If I were a hemlock, I might remember when the chestnut trees blanketed the mountains, each a queen, a generous splendor in the territory of forest. The blight that stole the chestnuts from us is the cancer living in her bones.

But what of the persimmon living on the forest edges, the bearer of sunset sweet fruit? She modeled the beauty of how to move with the wind, a gift passed to me, a sugarplum in my hand. The persimmons understand ornament just as well as nourishment, the way fruit hanging longest on the branch is better to taste. I will let this season ripen with my presence.

The tulip poplar haunts such places as bog edges and ravines, the magnolia a gem of welcome to hummingbirds. We welcomed strangers to our home, hospitality the burrow of my spirituality. Sacrificing its dark heartwood, poplars become servants of music, tenderly ruined, crafted into dulcimers and fiddles. If I were a poplar, I’d understand the sacrifices of the heart, the way being carved open allows a refrain to emerge. Sorrow and joy live intertwined.     

*Author’s note: The descriptions of each tree were inspired by A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, edited by Rose McLarney and Laura-Gray Street.

Jasmin Pittman Morrell is a writer and editor living in Asheville, North Carolina with her husband and two daughters. She enjoys facilitating healing through creativity, imagination, and deep listening.