The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily 1445: Hackberry by Cecily Parks
Jan 29, 2026
A reading of a poem that loves and mourns a cherished hackberry tree. Memories of family life and the tree’s slow decay come into focus. Tender physical attempts at connection and an imminent farewell create a quiet, aching atmosphere. Reflections on how to write while a familiar room disappears.
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Childhood Trees Shaping Home
- Maggie Smith remembers climbing and playing in a willow near her childhood home and later looking out at a pine from her bedroom window.
- She says those trees became part of her idea of home and later appeared in her poems.
A Tree Creates A Room
- Maggie frames Cecily Parks's "Hackberry" as a love poem to a tree and the sense of home it created.
- The poem shows how a tree's shade and leaves can compose a private, lived room within a house.
Sleeping Under The Hackberry
- Parks describes family members sleeping under the hackberry and feeling protected by folklore about evil spirits.
- She ties that protection to memory, sunlight patterns, and the tree's bark imagery like a pressed brown moth.