Redwood, Japanese maple, flowering 
cherry—three trees for the treeless yard where 
she grew up, a neighborhood too new for 
trees, not the weeping willow for hiding 
secrets, nor the dogwood she watched bloom from 
a cabin in East Texas one winter to 
spring—still so young she thought anything was 
possible—not the colony of quaking 
aspen where she camped on a canyon’s edge, 
their trunks curved into letters and question 
marks, nor the birch she left swinging in Vermont. 
Instead a redwood for growing in spite of, 
a Japanese maple to turn the seasons, 
a flowering cherry to cure her bitterness. 

LeeAnn Pickrell

is a poet, freelance editor, and managing editor of Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche. Her work has been published in many journals, most recently in Atlanta Review, Loud Coffee Press, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and ONE ART. Her book Gathering the Pieces of Days is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in 2025.

Author’s website: https://leeannpickrell.com/

Find her on BlueSky: leeannp.bsky.social