My Roots Remember

My roots are quiet things—

they hum beneath the noise.

The steady pulse of memory,

the hands that once held mine,

the soil of small beginnings

that still smells like home.

They keep me when the wind

wants to make a stranger of me.

They whisper, "stay",

when I forget where I came from.

But my branches—

they are the restless ones.

They ache for open sky,

for the pull of something more.

They carry my reach

into tomorrow’s light,

stretching past what I can see.

And in between—

I am the tree,

the trembling balance

of gravity and grace:

rooted enough to stand,

hungry enough to grow.

Both hold me—

the ground that knows my name,

and the air that dares me

to change it.

Sometimes I forget

how long it took to grow—

how many storms bent me sideways

before I learned to bend back.

How many winters stripped me bare

so I could feel the shape of myself again,

unadorned,

but still alive.

There are years in my bark,

rings of sorrow and laughter

pressed so close

they’re inseparable now.

Each one a record

of what I’ve endured quietly,

of what I’ve loved enough to keep.

And oh, the patience it takes—

to root in a place

before the sun even notices you,

to reach through cold soil

trusting warmth will come again.

Some days I envy the wildflowers—

how easily they bloom,

how briefly they belong.

But then I remember:

their roots do not hold

what mine remember.

Their blossoms fade

before the next dawn’s promise.

And though I am slower,

I am steady.

The same roots that weigh me down

are the ones that let me rise again.

They keep me tethered to something real

when the world feels too wide,

too loud,

too easily lost.

There are names carved in my trunk

from those who once leaned on me,

and I carry their stories quietly—

the echoes of their voices

like sunlight through the leaves.

I have known loss that splintered,

love that healed,

and seasons that asked me

to start again.

Still, I grow.

Every scar becomes a map

of how I made it through.

Every fallen leaf

a letting go

that feeds the soil of what’s next.

I have learned

that growing tall

does not mean leaving behind.

It means carrying forward—

making space for what was,

and what’s still to come.

And now I know—

I was never meant

to choose between them.

The reaching and the remembering

belong to the same breath.

The roots hum below,

the branches hum above,

and I am the song between.

I grow because I’m held,

I reach because I belong.

The wind may take my leaves,

but not my knowing.

Home is not behind me—

it’s inside the growth itself,

woven through each ring of time,

a pulse beneath the bark

that says, go on.

And so I do—

rooted, reaching,

whole.