POETRY

Dendrochronology of a Family Tree

By ROBERT AMéRICO ESNARD  |  15 FEB 2023

(The poem is visually arranged like the rings inside the stump of a tree, with a black border resembling the stump.) (first ring) i don’t have a family tree, but when i imagine mine, it is an old stump, a cut, a cross-section, a diagram that can only properly be read when dead. it feels more honest to represent a family this way. i understand the romantic appeal of a family tree: children as low-lying leaves flowing down from parents on branches reaching up into a celestial antiquity. how full a family must feel that way. but trees truly grow up and out. (second ring) new growth in trees comes from the outer-most layer, living cambium. most of what is dead cannot be seen except in the way it echoes through the wood. the events past, long lost to memory, still haunting the body. i don’t think we can fully imagine what we are attempting to grow from as much as what we are trying to grow into, (inner ring) we might not recognize, knotted into a long pattern, here we are, (second ring) chasing the light. (third ring) some open wounds are generations old. we have not been able to heal fully. these we have simply come to accept. others we can move beyond with time and effort, in the years when things are strained, the gaps between generations widen, the rings are thinner. i think i can forgive this. i know how hard it is to be kind under stress, the way (fourth ring) the tenderness hurts. i understand. and though i am not as patient as i’d like to be, i think i am (block insert) trees can envelop branches that don’t advance to support growth where it is wanted, an absent father replaced by a man who will love his daughter, his own. (fourth ring) learning from my father. and though i am not as brave as i’d like to be, i think i’m learning from my brother. i think i have my mother’s mind, (fifth ring) i have my grandfather’s hands, and my grandmother’s mouth, and curls from someone i have never even met. trees grow up and out with a posture that positions them as best as possible to succeed, despite all the faults (sixth ring) we inherit, we fortify. we grow up. and out of all i’ve learned, in and about life, i think i most appreciate what a cut can teach us about how to heal, how to keep on building. (seventh ring) even broken things are beautiful when you can appreciate them, remember them, the sun pouring through the vulnerabilities. (eighth ring) the oldest, deepest parts of ourselves, those we desperately try to forget, help hold us, (ninth ring) our family helps hold us, and we all grow in the light.

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Robert Américo Esnard was born and raised in the Bronx, NY. He studied Linguistics and Cognitive Science at Dartmouth College. His work has been published by or is forthcoming in Bat City Review, Cutbank, Michigan Quarterly Review, New York Quarterly, and many more journals and anthologies. He is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize-nominated poet.

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