Nonfiction by Thomasin LaMay
They stood. And stood for something. Just by standing.
“Lupins” by Seamus Heaney
Last summer, a business planted dozens of tiny saplings in a field near my home, green space in an urban area where I walk my dog. It was an attempt to fix poor choices, but the project went untended. The young trees tried to root through a dry fall, then rare, brutal winter. Now, in spring, they stand.
Proud, bone brittle, brown.
A mirror of world events. So much broken, being torn. I used to think I was in the world to look with goggle eyes, that awe was grace, maybe even faith. Now I am unsure. Feelings fracture. Kindness is scared. I want to feel useful, for things to make sense.
So there’s a certain perspicacity in these fragile and mostly dead trees which I start to embrace. I’ve watched them all spring as everything else turns green and flowers. Cherry limbs with pink blossoms dance against a bright blue sky. New-born fawns wander the creek’s edge. And all across the field, those un-bloomed saplings stand full-flaunt in their plots, stretching their splayed tips to the sky like cheerleaders. As if they were actually alive. Birds sing from their branches. A snapping turtle burrows and leaves her eggs. There’s no judgment, no anger at their neglect. They take what is given, as if to say yes. Yes, and thank you.
Mine are timid hands, but one morning I wrap them, warm and wanting, around each little spindle. You can do it, I say. You can do it. But I’m not sure what I mean by “it.” Perhaps their stand is not static. I wonder if such “standing” is a way of intrinsic belonging, that we’re all doing the “stand” but we just don’t (want to) see it. Because Heaney’s lupins, like these little trees, are also readying their own transformations, the inevitable. Knowing that is hard. Even though we’re doing it, all of us, together.
I’m not sure why that brings me comfort. Maybe because it makes sense.
The saplings remained through much of summer, but today when we go for our walk they are gone. Dug out. Small holes left behind, clumps of black dirt in a freshly cut field. Scraps of bark in the grass. Some were simply mowed over, their bodies intact on the ground. We bring one of them home, stand it in water on the porch.
In my backyard, late summer Obedient plants are starting to bloom. Not lupins, but a good look-alike. Tall, leggy, purple. Called “obedient” because if they fall over, you simply stand them back up. Also like lupins, they come back every year. New flowers, a long-established root system. Something to count on.
Thomasin LaMay is a writer, singer, and teacher in Baltimore, MD. She’s taught music and women/gender studies at Goucher College, and currently teaches high school. Her writing appears in Thimble Literary Journal, Ekphrastic Review, Yellow Arrow Journal, Yellow Arrow Vignette (online August 2025), and Tiny Memoir (January 2026).
