FEATURED: For All the Mothering Trees
by Tasha Jun
From The Birth of Venus by Botticelli
FOR ALL THE MOTHERING TREES
There are worlds within the trees
an entire universe beneath
the maples and oaks that keep them
living through season after season
holding robin nests and chickadee gatherings while
children squeal and swing from their branches.
In the fall, the trees lose everything.
All the things they’ve grown and watered
fly away with the wind without a thought;
their empty nests fall apart with broken
egg shell remnants and yet
they still stand, insides laid bare, brown skin showing,
waiting for goodness to come.
There are multitudes of dreams within you and me.
An entire universe of generations keeps swirling around us
and we live through this vast cosmos in ordinary days of
stretched skin that stack up against our longings.
We watch our children grow up from the cradle of our arms
like spring buds and summer leaves on branches.
In the fall, every fall, I witness the trees lose everything.
I remember, I too, am a tree, in a network of trees, that mother, water, shelter
our own shoots and buds only to watch them fly away with the wind leaving
the ache of an ever-emptying nest lodged in my bones, season after season
still believing Love’s roots hold me as I’m laid bare,
waiting for a rebirth like the trees.
TASHA JUN
Tasha is a Korean American melancholy dreamer who grew up in a multicultural and biracial home. She's spent her life navigating liminal space. Writing has always been the way God has led her through the ache and toward the hope of shalom. Her debut book, Tell Me the Dream Again: Reflections on Family, and the Sacred Work of Belonging is available now, wherever books are sold.
Find her at https://www.tashajun.com or sign up for her monthly notes at https://shalomsick.substack.com.