[Issue #1] Poems in the Buff - cypress knees
a free verse poem
cypress knees
daddy,
did you know that cypress trees have knees?
they are roots that grow
from the river bed
and peek above the water.
aren’t i one of your knees?
do i drink the dark waters of maxwell creek
and give all the nutrients to you
because it is what i’m made to do?
i ask
because there is only sediment
left in my hands.
white sand and black dirt
and dead leaves and turtle bones,
and microscopic bits of the great bald cypress
that is a mother to our swamp.
she is thousands of years old
and her trunk is five hugs around.
she widens towards the water
like a skirt with fifteen grandbabies hiding underneath.
her bark is a silver that changes
with each day’s new sky.
her sides are striped with flood bands,
settled, like scars darkened by the sun.
shawls of moss hang
from dozens of her shoulders.she is the only one on earth
you whisper to.
you say something about me,
how i sit still for too long,
as if a root could do anything else.
you wanted me to grow taller,
to heights you couldn’t climb.
and when the water goes down in a dry month
and my body is bared to the neighbors,
you would rather it rise
and overtake us
than have me nodding to the junipers
and laughing with the horse flies.i see you talking to her.
she asks you how your family is,
your sons she has not seen drift by in a canoe
since 1996.
you tighten your lips
and lower your head
and say they’re both just fine.
they are good men now.
you do not realize that
ancient mothering trees
can see through fibs.
you cannot trust her
with the tenderness
under your bark.
you stopped growing there
when your fibers were still green,
when you could bend to winds
and words.
pride petrifies
the wildest
of woods.
i wonder if our creek mother
can show you how to listen.
how to grow rings of stories
instead of stone.
how to catch giggles in your branches
and cherish them into mistletoe.
how to push the aches of shouting matches
into spans of evergreen garland.
how to make fireside memories
out of woodpecker scars.
i hope our mother cypress
can teach you.
but also i wonder
if even ancient trees
think much
about their knees.
The naked stuff
The prompt that inspired this poem was to imagine a family member talking to me from up in a tree. Naturally, I imagined my father in a massive cypress (because they’re the bestess), but he is talking to the tree instead of me (I’m sure that means… something). This is one in a series of poems about me and my father, so you’ll get some more context over time.
Click here to see the editing process of this poem.
The poem has three drafts. The revisions aren’t too far from the original free write, which is weird for me, as I tend to over edit until the text is unrecognizable. Oddly enough, SubStack seems to be lacking in the formatting department, so I can’t indent the sentences the way I do in my current draft. Why do I need to do that anyway? Great question!! I have no idea. I’m going to give you the extremely frustrating answer of, “it just seems right.” I’ve been experimenting with breaking free from the left margin lately (on the keen advice of a workshop leader), and it gives the structure some visual texture. Dare I say, much like the many different heights of cypress knees above unmoving swamp waters?
But wait, more nudes! Here is some written feedback from said workshop leader (thank you Andy!):
WTF are cypress knees, anyway?
I recently discovered that most people don’t know what cypress knees are. They look just like stalagmites, only they grow from the bottom of swamps instead of caves. Old trees have big knees that reach high out of the water. I always thought they were just baby trees growing from the roots of their mother, but it turns out their function isn’t known. When I was little, I identified with them somehow. They were weird. A little sneaky (because you can’t always see them below the water line). Mysterious. I can’t wait to be a great grandmother cypress one day and have my own gaggle of knees.
Take care, nerds.
JSH