Do Trees Remember Us? by Jessica D. Thompson

Molly Des Jardin CC




Do Trees Remember Us?

When I leaned closely and touched the 500-year-old Angel 
Oak tree on Johns Island, in South Carolina, I was sure I felt 
a heartbeat. Did it know that I traveled half-way across the 
country just to be in its presence? Do trees remember us? 
The sickly peach tree which became my pouting tree 
before I hit puberty, did it die with any thoughts of the 
painfully shy me, the gangly me, perched within its sappy 
limbs, hiding from my siblings? And what of the catalpa 
tree, the bean tree, in the front yard of my childhood home? 
The neighborhood hide-and-seek tree. Our home base tree. 
The one with the secret initials, R.J., carved into its rugged 
trunk. Was R.J. a boy who lived in this river town when 
steamships ran up and down the Ohio? Did he play marbles 
beneath its shade? And what about the maple when, 
at five-years old, my grandfather lifted me onto a lower limb. 
That limb became a stallion, carrying me through a grove 
of magical leaves. Did the maple grow sad when we moved 
to the city? The mulberry tree where I built a tree house, 
overlooking a creek. I never ever flinched when the winds 
came, rocking me back and forth. Did it finally fall in a 
windstorm? Was it carried away by the stream? Where are 
they now? These sacred oracles. Were some cut down, 
turned into firewood, or perhaps carved into a cross, made
into a coffin? Did any die a natural death, losing branches 
as the years passed? I imagine some were taken by disease, 
or infestations of insects. Did some resort to suicide, aided 
by invasive vines? In Winter, I am aware that death comes 
nearer. The trees surrounding me now speak in a forgotten 
tongue. Perhaps their language has been recorded by the 
stars above. And under us, the life-giving mycelium serves 
as a translator, trying to keep us all connected. Maybe trees
are batteries that keep us bonded to the earth, the universe, 
to ourselves. Whenever a tree falls, it often becomes a 
nurse log, providing habitat for new life including 
seedlings, mosses, and small animals in a forest ecosystem. 
The decaying process breaks the wood down into a rich 
humus. All these trees ask of me: What are you nurturing? 
What will you leave behind?


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Jessica D. Thompson's poems have appeared in journals such as Verse Daily, the Atlanta Review, Gyroscope Review, ONE ART, Tiferet Journal, and The Southern Review. Her full-length poetry collection, “Daybreak and Deep,” was short-listed for the 2024 Indiana Authors Award for Poetry. Her latest poetry collection, “The Mood Ring Diaries,” was released in 2025.



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