by Amanda DeVos Newell
THE LOVE LETTERS OF TREES
Dear Dad—
When I look up at the trees
I think of you,
how I am the seed
of your tree
that grew beside you.
Roots entwined,
leaves rustling with laughter,
how I was your understory,
your understudy,
looking up to you.
And as tall as you were,
you gave me shelter,
not shadow—
your limbs wide enough to let
sunlight down, strong enough
to withstand storms without snapping.
I grew up seeking to be like you—
the way your sap ran thick
with gratitude, fun, love, joy.
You liked a walk in forests
of any kind—the sound of swaying
boughs and fluttering leaves,
the soundlessness of mossy
and snow-loaded forests—
always on the lookout
for nests above
and feathers at your feet.
You transplanted dozens
of baby evergreens
to line the roadside,
hand-hauled buckets of water,
year after year,
until their taproots
were deep enough—
soon to become a giant hedge
that hushed traffic noise.
You’d climb high
on ladders to clip
a dual top off a pine—
to be sure it grew straight—
and to prune broken
branches after a storm.
You were always watering
and trimming wherever you went—
a promoter of growth.
When I left for college,
and every fall since,
you mailed me a card
with a collection of leaves
you’d pressed.
These love letters of trees
are still scattered on my shelves.
Now I have been sliding
pictures of you between the leaves
of books I’m reading,
imagining the pages
can also preserve
the color of memory.
You left us in June,
when the leaves
were brightest green
and the river brimmed
from peak snowmelt
and repeated thunderstorms.
Perhaps that is right,
as to my heart—even still—
you remain a tree in its prime:
wise, oxygen-giving
sheltering, sturdy,
perspective-orienting,
gentle, unique,
rooted, productive,
resilient in storm,
full of good fruit, growing,
a strong presence even
without saying a word.
Your sickness raged
like a wildfire
ravaging,
burning you
to the ground,
scorching us in its wake—
no matter how
you tried to protect us,
or how I tried to protect you.
Yet, you left behind seeds
that couldn’t otherwise
open without heat.
Now I can’t stop thinking about trees
and how the Bible starts with the Tree of Life
in the center of a garden.
Eating of the wrong tree
locks humanity out of Eden.
Then Jesus, a woodworker,
dies on a tree twisted
for torture and execution.
He chose to be the seed
that dies to become
the Tree of Immortality
for those who trust him as Savior.
The story ends with that Tree
growing beside a river—
its leaves promised for our healing
and its good fruit given
in abundance, without ceasing.
Though taken to ashes here,
the Good Farmer has replanted you,
a tree rooted in a forest
that glows with unfading fall—
a place only of harvesting, feasting,
and thanksgiving.
But here, in this season of layered shadows—
disturbance, fragility, loss, dark, grief—
we gather as family, missing you.
Your giant absence
leaves us exposed
to harsh conditions
of cold, wind, and change
in a world where autumn
still means death
and bleak winter follows.
But we gather to honor you,
a mighty tree,
and to honor this family tree—
the others who have
leafed and left before—
dreaming of the day
we are replanted beside
you in that Good Country
with the God who calls
his faithful oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor,
who says we are rooted
and established in his love
that never fails.
Fall leaves me clinging
to the soil you’ve left,
to the Creator of trees,
to the promise of resurrection:
to a place where the rings of life widen on and on—countless.
GOLD POTATOES
After plucking
at a keyboard
and tapping
at a screen all day,
I go out beneath the late sun
and kneel
beside the row of browning
potato plants.
I pull each up
by the stem,
like a magician pulling a hare
out of a hat
to reveal a dazzling,
dangling
collection of
golden goods,
and for the rest, I dig by hand—
much deeper than I’d think—
and unearth each coin
of buried treasure.
Nothing I touch
on the face of a phone
gives me the filled feeling
like wrapping
my palm
around
a potato, fresh
from the ground.
A million metal microchips
have nothing on
the raw riches
of water, starch, and grace.
AMANDA DEVOS NEWELL
Amanda DeVos Newell is a writer, editor, project manager, and follower of Jesus. She grew up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and received her English degree from Westmont College. Her poems appear in the Advent collection A Radiant Birth (IVP, 2023) and the Lent-Easter collection A Radiant Resurrection (IVP, 2026). Amanda lives in Bellingham, Washington, with her husband, Mathias, and enjoys being outside, surrounded by trees, mountains, and streams, or inside, surrounded by books, a cup of tea, and their cats, Chai Latte and Earl Grey.