Growing up, I only knew it as the worm tree.
We’d pick them off its foliage for fish
bait in the heat of summer,

long beans bumping our arms.
This magic tree in the backyard
growing the perfect worms.

So many, they’d fall on our heads
if we stood beneath its branches,
and on occasion too many,

and it’d get so hole-y it looked bare.
Sometimes, we’d rip off whole leaves and
tuck them into jars to carry our captives

across the yard or down to the creek
to catch fish from pools
deep enough to stand the droughts.

I never learned its real name until
I was a teen, or that the worms are
actually caterpillars until I was an adult.

I still love to think about stories of the
worm tree, but my favorite part now
are its blossoms buzzing with bees

until they fall to coat the ground like snow.