Once, the honey locust was a partner in survival, not just a landscaping afterthought. Its sweet pods offered a modest but reliable source of energy, turned into simple drinks or chewed on long walks, long before refined sugar reshaped our diets. Its wood, hard and stubborn, marked boundaries and held up rough shelters, taking the punishment of rain, frost, and wind without complaint.
Even its overlooked qualities told a different story of living with the land rather than above it. A faint lather from bark and pod hinted at a time when cleanliness meant understanding plants, not reading labels. Today, the same tree still shelters birds, feeds deer, draws pollinators, and quietly repairs tired soil. It stands where concrete begins and memory ends, waiting for someone to ask what it once did—and what it might still do, if we chose to remember.
