"Roots?"
Whose Roots
Yours Mine Ours
Whose Ties
And Who's Tied to Whom
What slow seeping sweeping tentacles
Of Memory
Could Reach
So Far Back
Like That Book Your Grandmother Read
Soft with your Head
Nestled in the Ample Bosom
Of Security
Drifting Off to Sleep
&
Into Dream
Lusciously Numb
Unable to Tell
The Difference
Between
The Truth & The Lie
So Softly Woven
Into That Magic Fabric
of Memory
And the Memory of Really Feeling
Of Trusting the Hunch
That Turned into a Deep Secret Revealed
Dripping
In The Blood and Sap
Of Both Glory
And Scorn
Displaying & Betraying
The Hero
And His Left Sides Thorn
You Know The One
The One that Digs So Deep
The One That Judges
The One that Replays
Over & Over & Over
That Reaction
To Some Unplanned Event
At The age of 8, 12, 16, 20
When you Thought You’d always have
So Many
Pockets of Plenty
&
Then They Come
Those Days
When you See
All Is Not Well
And People Do Die
Or Worse
They Just Fall Away
Flashing Seizures of your own Decay
To Become Food
For Your Childrens
&
Their Childrens Roots
And Then
Then
It’s Not So Casual Anymore
Is It?
So You Start Pushing
Pushing So Hard Against Yourself
And Those Eyes
Those Fucking Eyes
That Look Back From the Mirror
Reminding You of All You’ve Done
And All that’s Been Done To You
And Every Other Prophet
And Every Other Fucking Fool
Then the Many Years
In Utter Disbelief
That
You Really Took Them All So Seriously
All Those Petty Tortures Received
Back In Water Boarding School
By Those Petty Tyrants
Those Burnt Out 6th Grade Teachers
Bosses
And Everyone of those
God Damned
Mother Fuckin
Politicians & Preachers
Deconstructing Our Stories
In Our Memories
Thick Shallow Pool
With Their Damnation’s Judgment
Or
Feigned Monumental Praise
Eventually
Inevitably
Always
Laid Level
Face Down
On The Gravel Road of Truth
Gathering A Breathe
Rhythmically Saying
Rhythmically Saying
Rhythmically Saying
Occasionally Praying
Please
Please
Oh God Please
Just Get Me Through This Day
Without The Shame
Of All My Fathers Deeds
And Now Those My Own
Done in his Name
Beginning To Worry
Coming To Terms
With All the Days
That Are Numbered
That Those Times
Swinging From The Branches
Like The Number Of Leaves on the Tree
The Same Number Of Chances
And OHH
Baby
It’s Late September
And All These Leaves
They Start Dropping
Like Newton’s Apples
Falling and Flowing
To a Will Beyond Our Own
But
Our brief time in the Free Fall
Well That
That My Friend
Tells All
The Panic
&
The Grace
When those Moments
Make easy
The Surrender
To The Roots
To The Free Fall of This Round
Releasing to the Ground
Coming to Terms with the Undeniable Fact
That We Will
If Our Time Falling Meant Anything
Become
Good Food
Really Good Food
For the Dead Memories Fire
That Our Stories
Our Influence Will Remain
Living in the Grain
Of Each Roots Ring
Rippling
In The Joy and The Pain
Of All Our Pieces
From The Roots to The Sky
Of All Our Lives
Even Those That Slip In between
Till The Birth, The Life And The Death
Become a Reoccurring Dream
In Our Collective
Cellular Memory
Till
Our Collective Unconscious
Calls To You
Like a Ghost
From Your Roots
My Roots
Our Roots
With The Memory
Of Being
The Leaves
Of Holding So Strong to the Branches
&
Spreading Like Sails
In the Gentle Wind
Of a Crisp
Sunny
Day
So What Will
Your Roots Say?
I Know We All Still Carry
The Pain & The Praise
Of All Those by Whom We Were Raised
For these are our roots
&
They Do Sink deep
And Grab So Hard
They give the strength
Of Generations
That allow
Our Trees to Sway
To Deposit the Seeds
To Ensure a Future
And Hopefully
Another Fruitful Day
So What Must
Our
Roots Say
To All the Leaves
And All the Branches
The Spirit Sponsors
And All Those that Rest In Their Shade
They Will Say
Open Yourself
Without Fear
Spread Yourselves Wide
Stretch Yourself
Beyond Your Belief
To the Full Light Of The Noon Day Sun
& The New Moons Night
And Relish
The Un-judged Glory
Of A Simple Leaf
Secure
On the Branch
&
Spreading
Like a Sail
In the Gentle
Wind
Of a Crisp
Sunny
Day
(2013 photo of Patrick Conley by Grady Thrasher)
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