The Mother Tree Trilogy (Three Spoon River Poems)

Rebecca Parsons

My heartsick parents drove their wagon
Into Lewistown to seek a doctor for me;
But it was no use.  I was six months old
When I died of the whooping cough.
Having no money to pay for a proper headstone,
My mother hesitatingly asked the sexton
If she could plant a tree to mark my grave.
The slender sapling took hold.  Eventually
Its roots embraced the rude wooden coffin
That had become my eternal cradle.
My maple whispers to me of the golden sun,
Nurturing rain and rich back soil.
It reassures me when I hear the crack
Of thunder during fierce summer storms.
I can feel my tree stretch toward the sun
As it sprouts its leaves to welcome Spring.
You were so wise, Mother.
How did you know that the tree that you planted
To mark my final resting place
Would become my teacher, protector and friend?

Rachel Parsons

The small sapling that I planted to mark
My daughter's grave was watered
With my tears as I slipped it into the earth.
I tapped the ground around it tenderly,
Pulling it up against the trunk of the little maple
As I would've my daughter's blanket around her.
I prayed that it would take root and grow
To become my baby Rebecca's protector.
Then I had to move on, following my husband
On a trek that had taken us from Buffalo
To this village of now bitter association,
To what we'd dreamed would be a better life
In Texas.  We did prosper,
But I never could conceive another child.
We were wealthy enough at the time of my death
To allow my husband to honor my last wish.
He sent me back here
To be buried near this now majestic red maple,
Close to my daughter.

Betsy Bannister

As the daughter of the sexton
Who'd recorded burials at Oak Hill Cemetery,
I'd heard the story of the young mother,
Never dreaming that it would pertain to me.
Then the gift of the body that I gave in love
Left me with a faithless man's parting gift.
Ashamed of my gullibility, and fearful
Of what my parents would think of me, and how
This town's narrow-minded prudes would react,
I covered my growing shame in loose dresses.
I resented the seed that had been planted in me
Until in the seclusion of a nearby woods
I gave birth to a stillborn little girl.
Sadness overwhelmed me as I gazed down
At her tiny hands, her delicate body, and her face
Wreathed in the innocence of sinless repose.
During those moments I would've given my life
To have given her the opportunity to breathe.
I thought of that other mother of years past
Who always mourned the loss of her daughter
And begged before death to be buried near her.
That evening I slipped out of the house,
Retrieved the sad little bundle that I'd hidden,
And buried her close to the Mother Tree.

I dare not ask to be buried near her.