Home by the Bay Tree

During a recent trip to Georgia,
I walked with my cousin
around land owned by her family
for generations.

She pointed out a magnolia tree
of enormous proportions,
something her great Aunt Eula Mae
has always called "the old bay tree."
Aunt Eula Mae has known this tree
for almost 100 years.

The house behind the tree
has also been there for a century or more.
It is abandoned and slowly falling apart
but still full of family memories,
particularly for those living
on other parts of the land.

There is something
about this history of place,
knowing that your relatives
have walked the same soil
and seen smaller versions of the same tree
and lived in buildings
still in sight
that provides connections
seldom experienced
in transitory modern life.

Modern city folk
are so quick to knock down
old trees
old houses
old memories.
Sometimes we are just
more limited in space,
not having extra acres
to build something new.
Sometimes we are simply
too quick to dismiss the past
as irrelevant or painful.


I believe we understand
who we have become
with more insight
if we remember
what came before.