SOCIETY ASSUMES THAT MEN IN PRISON WOULDN’T FEEL ANYTHING WHEN THREE BLACK WALNUT TREES IN THE YARD GET CUT DOWN. That assumption misses the truth. “We can’t have nothing,” said Marcos Espinal, a person incarcerated at Eastern New York Correctional Facility (ENYCF), as he stared at the brown gash-of-a-stump protruding from the ground.

After two of the hottest months in New York, the Department of Corrections okayed the removal of three ancient Black Walnut trees from ENYCF.

“These aren’t tree huggers coming to the yard to swap granola recipes,” said Mark Acevedo, a person incarcerated at ENYCF. “These are gangbangers and addicts, at least that’s how society sees all of us.”

In reality, the shared sentiment among us at ENYCF reflected a deep sense of loss for what those three Black Walnut trees had given us: protection from the sun, a sign of life, and a trace of beauty.

The ENYCF facility boasted to be the only prison yard in the state with trees. And we never took this for granted. The ability to touch those living, grand, and beautiful trees, rooted before any of us, and likely standing long after we fall, was the one thing we cherished. 

The bark of the trees teemed with life. Crevices served as highways for ants; hairy caterpillars inched up and down those lanes; and palm-sized moths, try as they might, often camouflaged themselves against the tree’s stalk.

Contrast that serene scene with our new reality of dismembered remains of the Black Walnut trees piled into neat but gruesome piles. 

Nothing prepared us for the sight of the Black Walnut trees, their bellies split open and exposed. Some people walked around them, trying to calculate the trunks’ diameter. The whole thing felt sacrilegious, even if they only meant to learn the trees’ age.

“Man you can’t get the age like that, you gotta count the rings, that’s how you know the age of trees,” someone shouted from the crowd gathering around the stump.

One person in the crowd, trained in arborism, said the cut Black Walnut trees had stood for well over 150 years, possibly closer to 200. 

ENYCF came about in the early 1900s. The prison rose around those trees at the very least, and had predated every administration until August 2025.

We all took it hard when ENYCF cut the trees down. “They’re really taken out like that,” one person said. For many, the removal felt like witnessing a loved one being taken out. But no wake followed, no funeral to attend, nothing to help us grieve.

But as in the hood, when authorities take someone beloved, we grieve and honor the fallen by pouring out libations.

This time proved no different. Several guys took turns pouring out clear liquid at the base of the tree stump from their Niagara plastic bottles filled with “purified drinking water”.

“I think what bothers me the most,” retorted Victor Merced-Almonte, a person incarcerated at ENYCF, “Those trees were not bothering no one, administration would rather cut them down than allow us to have anything that reminds us of our humanity.” 

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EVERYONE DESERVES THE GRACE OF ENJOYING NATURE.

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Witnessing this action proved to me that shade is not equally distributed or often thought of as a necessity for the voiceless.

In all fairness, many of the turnkey officers—the ones without much authority—equally felt conflicted and confused about seeing two trees chopped down, though no officers would dare go on record saying as much. We all witnessed a crime scene rooted in eco-erasure. 

Yet, during this assassination, some moments of togetherness simultaneously arose in the yard. Religious folks like Muslims, Christians, and Jews, along with gangbangers, Natives, and queer people, all came together to share stories about the tree. Some people picked up and pocketed the sawdust, as evidence of the Black Walnuts’ presence, and as a totem in remembrance of our beloved trees. 

“When I first walked into this yard and saw those three trees, it had a calming effect on me, the space felt like a big park, not a Max-A prison yard,” said Bryan Panarella, a person incarcerated at ENYCF. 

The Black Walnut trees serve as a source of life, act as carbon sinks that purify the air, and provide us with symbols of strength. Everyone deserves the grace of enjoying nature. Reinforcing the idea that nature isn’t for people who end up in prison sends the wrong message.

Now, just like every other prison yard in New York state, the yard at ENYCF resembles a graveyard of concrete tables and sparse patches of green space. The only trees in view are the ones off in the distance, sprinkled up in the hills.