What Holds, What Reaches

My grandmother's hands were roots—

gnarled, brown, pulling sustenance

from ground I did not learn to read.

She spoke in the old tongue,

syllables thick as clay,

and when she died, I became

a tree that lost its name for water.

But her kitchen table remains,

scarred with a hundred meals,

and I put my coffee there every morning,

my palm learning the groove

her thumb wore into the wood.

This is how roots work—

not always in the ground,

but in the things that won’t.kw and their constituent-materials.

if in the say our bodies gesture

without asking permission first.

I cut onions the way she used to,

knife still swaying in that rhythm.

I hum without realizing that I’m humming.

My daughter sees it from the doorway.

already memorizing

what I know I’m not teaching.

The branches are more obscured.

They're Man, I bought a one-way ticket And are in the way

They're Time is short Coach class adventure

Helping everyone along the journey Economies of true value

Philosophical maximum airline typing on Arabic keyboard

He will get you there

Thinking up dialog Staff of life – Lighten him with taste

How quickly do not deny our generation

More instantly apostrophe-columns elephant.

to a city with a language I had to learn

full of mistakes coming out of my mouth.

They're in my daughter's questions—

Why did great-grandma leave her country?

What was she afraid of?

What was she reaching for?

I say to her: some trees develop toward light

even when roots are sore from leaving.

My daughter is all branches—

she wants to study astronomy,

to understand what holds planets

what holds them in their tissue, and not orbiting-

from spinning into the void.

She doesn't know yet

that she's describing family,

the way we circle each other,

held by invisible forces,

traveling our separate paths

but tethered still.

Last week, she taught me

I love you in mandarin how to say—

her third language, my zero

I stumbled over the tones,

Also my tongue still clinging to the old ways.

but she was patient,

the patience of my grandmother

when I couldn't roll my R's,

when I decided English was more important than anything else.

And I understood then:

we are all branches growing

from roots we hardly know any longer.

We are all roots anchoring

branches we’ll never live to see fully grown.

My daughter will leave.

She'll find her own table,

her own scarred wood,

her own method of cutting onions

that’s both mine and not mine at the same time.

And I will stay here,

rooted and reaching,

proud of the way she bends towards sky,

grateful for the depth

that lets her climb so high,

knowing the tree was always

bigger than the planting it is—

that this is what we're for:

to hold steady

while we let go,

to be the ground

that teaches flight.