The Witness of Trees

In 2021 I worked as a groundskeeper at a residential center in Wabash, Indiana. There’s so much I could say, and have said, and will keep saying about how the place called me, taught me, and changed me—and the tl:dr of it is that if there’s one piece of writing I want you to read, one which starts to channel the story through me of why I was called there, it’s this one. This essay, The Witness of Trees, written by me, is just a seed, but is a product of so much dedication and love and reciprocal relationship with the land that first started teaching me about what that means in the first place. It also was a result of some deep learning from when I audited a class on local indigenous literature through Indiana University South Bend Department of English , which added historical context and language to what my body was already telling me.

The themes in this piece are closely followed by the themes that I explore in my upcoming poetry book, Water the Bones, coming out this year through The North Meridian Press.

Listen below, and read the full text of the essay at The North Meridian Review blog.