Ulmus Animae (Elm of the Soul)
Gabriel Wagstaff, Southern Connecticut State University

Artist Statement: In an age of mental health crises, social media, and misinformation, one’s soul can succumb to “disease” in many ways. “Ulmus Animae” draws on the specialized experience of an arborist to present a concise and optimistic view of human spiritual experience through conceit. The speaker of the poem is an arborist, caring for an elm tree, which is particularly vulnerable to disease. Dutch elm disease is caused by fungi and spreads through beetles and root systems, and it can become so large that governments enact policies aimed at preventing and controlling the disease. After watching other trees fall, the speaker has an underlying fear that the same fate could reach them. The poem explores the limitations of free will to nurture our own spirit, noting that the trees who fell to disease were not in control of their circumstances. Despite this, the speaker is determined to have their own initiative as the reason their elm will not become sick.
My elm tree protects me from the rays of the sun,
when I sit under him these long afternoons.
His serrated emerald leaves rustle in the wind,
whispering his love, though he cannot speak,
and admitting a fear that I once held too.
We gaze across the grass to scattered stumps,
prosperous life turned remnants and mere memory.
For when the beetles came, the trees could not run,
their roots shallow, but ultimately immobile.
A cycle of eaten leaves, bored chambers, eggs,
larvae, insatiable hunger, fungi, and death.
Their brown leaves whispered apathy and fell.
But I tame his fear with initiative,
pruning carefully, grasping the handles of my shears
with tough love, seeping water through fertilized earth,
blanketing my seat with mulch.
My elm is nurtured, loved tenderly,
and as he shades me in long afternoons,
I read him stories of hope.
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