The Black Walnut Trees

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

When I arrived here things

were not as I had expected,
not at all, truth be told.
On my first night, I slept
out on the deck, under the
stars and the arm of a tree.
In the night, she came to me,
a bright shining she who
was the tree and she said,
“I know why you are here. The
land called you here.” With
that, she left, but I did not.
One day, a man came up the

drive in an old rust-bottomed

pick up. He thought me a fool.

“Mam, I see ya got these big

ol’ trees, dangerous, gonna fall

on yur place. I’ll cut ‘em fer ya,

even carry ‘em away, cheap.”

I know a thing or two about
being swindled, and also how
to talk like I’m from a place.

“Sir, ain’t nobody gonna touch

my black walnuts! Not today,

not ever. No, Sir, they ain’t.

Now, git!” He understood me.

The truck bumped its way back

down the drive at, quite remarkably,

twice the speed it had arrived.

He hasn’t called on me since.

So, the black walnut grove still
extends its arms, still embraces

my little cabin, still embraces me,
still knows secrets that

I haven’t yet learned

of myself.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in Conversations with Mary: Words of Attention and Devotion

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The Necessary Voyage

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

When the birds have come to say, “wake and rise,”

I do, gathering my life into a bundle of severances,

resting words of gratitude on the brows of the departed,

some of them in mirrors, my heart used up in this place.

Not of all voyagers get maps or a compass that points
to something other than grief. Some must go without

bearing. Actually, the honest books, sermons, and town

criers say that many and many more are going this way,

just on from somewhere destroyed, hoping with an acrid,

musty hope that there is a healing land before them.
For a man to leave what he loves, there’s a good chance

he’s already died, or begun to and surely will.

Does one remain a citizen of a fallen city?

Shall I ask this of the woodland creatures? Shall I ask it

of my name and those who carried it into the world

before me over long distances because, well, because

love departed the soul of some person and place.

At my desk near a large picture window, I write and
and wonder while listening to the song of birds

who will soon lift and go. What can I inherit of this?
What’s there to make of the necessary voyage when

the land no longer offers a tending embrace.

I don’t know how the birds do it, keeping their glee

about it year after year. We humans aren’t built

like that it seems. Life after life it goes on, the

wretched longing for birth place, for story place,

for the place that made sense of us.

We arrive wounded, betrayed by the gods, weeping,
and impatient to love and be loved again. Looking

around I realize that we are all necessary voyagers.

How do I make my peace with that fact? How

do I reconcile my ability to hang seed for the birds,

but not to provision water in a desert, or a map and

compass to the great ship captain?

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in Conversations with Mary: Words of Attention and Devotion

Winner of the Nautilus Book Award silver medal for poetry

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I Bow Down

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I bow down.

I bow down to the sky that oversees

the liars and the truthsayers.

I bow down to the earth that conveys

the rich and the poor.

I bow down to the child that will lead

tomorrow and the child that leads

today and the child that must become

an angel because we won’t follow

the children otherwise.

What I stand for is that which

I bow down to:

that which says we’re not done

yet, there’s a lot more to learn

to love.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in Conversations with Mary: Words of Attention and Devotion

Winner of the Nautilus Book Award silver medal for lyrical prose

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The Black Walnut Grove

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

My cabin is nestled in a black walnut grove. The grey-black trees stand tall and firm, like guardians. Their thick branches reach out and around, embracing. Lichen, moss, and vines adorn them in a manner that you’re sure is ceremonial. They are trees and not just trees, like in the way that you know you’ve had dreams that weren’t just dreams. I’m getting to that.

The black walnut is an edge species, meaning that it is neither of the forest nor the field. Its role is not to fit quite in. It’s also considered a pioneer species, meaning that it’s one of the first to show up when a place needs healing. It has been widely regarded for its utility: the dark wood—easily worked as hardwoods go—sap sugars, brown dye from the nut hulls, and nut meat and oil, despite the fact that it is one tough nut to crack. Medicinally, among other things, it has been used to address a wide range of skin and gut issues. 

I think I was in my late twenties when the first part of the dream came to me. I’m pretty sure that it was after my mother’s death. So, I would have been twenty-six, at least.

I was listening to a young woman talk about her stepmother. She was saying that the thing she appreciated most about her was her sense of gratitude. Her stepmother was a deeply grateful person. It was like gratitude was what her stepmother lived on—her breath, her sustenance. The young woman went on to say that when she was a child, she didn’t think much about it; it was just the way her stepmother was. However, as she grew older and began to frequent the edges of adult conversations, she started to learn things about her stepmother’s life before she had become her stepmother. Her stepmother’s life, she learned, had been difficult. At times, very difficult. This surprised her and impacted her deeply. She considered herself lucky. She was well loved and supported. To be truthful, she was quite privileged. If her stepmother could be so grateful despite an affluence of dark days, then certainly she could be more grateful for all that she had. She decided to become a grateful person, like her stepmother.

When I awoke from the dream, I thought it beautiful. It felt bittersweet—like something that exists at the interface of sadness and joy. It couldn’t fully occupy either sentiment, but contained both, actively. I was deeply moved by the thought of what it would be like to impart such a gift to a child, how it could transform a life, how it could transform some aspect of the world. I thought: I’m going to be grateful. I’m going adopt gratitude as a way of living. And, so, I did. Well, I’ve been trying my best, anyway.

The scientific name for the black walnut is Juglans nigra. The tree is literally of the gods; juglans is derived from jovis glans, meaning the nut of Jupiter, the king of the gods. In Autumn, when the leaves are golden and the walnuts begin to crash down on my metal roof, it can feel like the gods are having something of a temper tantrum. Some people hate the trees for this and cut them away from their homes. I learned a long time ago neither to quarrel with nor dismiss the gods. They are usually up to something beyond mortal understanding. Although there has been many a night when the walnuts have awakened me from a deep sleep, a crash, bang, causing me to bolt upright in bed, I adore them still.

I adore them sufficiently to want to grow their company. In large bushel baskets, I collect all of the nuts that fall in the driveway and on the decks. I then walk the thresholds, tossing the nuts to their destiny at the edges of my farm’s woods and meadow, along the stream courses, and at roadside, wherever they will be able to get sufficient moisture and light. If it wasn’t for my appreciation of their company, they wouldn’t be in this holler anymore. Over the decades that preceded my arrival, loggers removed all but my parent grove.

I think I was in my late forties, maybe fifty, when the second part of the dream came to me. It was short. This time, I wasn’t just listening to the story. I was watching the young woman standing behind a podium, speaking into a microphone, telling the story about her stepmother’s gratitude. People were listening. People were feeling. It was a funeral. It was my funeral. I had been the stepmother.

There’s a certain delight that I feel when I look down and, there before me, I see the first few inches of a young walnut sapling making its way into the world.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in RidgeLines: A View of Nature and Human Nature

Winner of the Nautilus Book Award gold medal for lyrical prose

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