Deep Roots Meredith Berend I gaze up at the night sky her lonely clouded eyes dull even in the sticks though they twinkle like a wink on occasion, pull words from my lips make me beg to go home to my roots of curled tendril tree flesh and wayward stone tender-woven arms beckoning from soil beneath my bare feet. I could be one of the wilted flowers on my front porch that bends to a sliver of sunlight. Plant me right here. Trade in my skin for the cracked red dirt that longs for a drought-ending storm to seep through its pores or the newly-dead leaves that cling to oak branches long after spring has faded into fall holding on tight as they whisper let me be your last. Though I fear them now, if back to my roots I would move like the ants and beetles and spiders devour and be devoured leave no drop of my life unused, untouched, unwrapped, unmoved, pulled to pieces like bones left behind by hawks. Instead, I lay in repose beneath solitary stars who shake their heads silence my pleas which sink into the earth where I find my feet stained grass green a greeting from my roots.
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