I watch the sun glisten off the creek.
Large trees line the sides
Their dark roots exposed against the white shale.
Their reach desperate to touch the water-
Some half leaning across the expanse.
Roots of trees, or heart strings, we all need roots
To gather our nutrients and love and to be whole.
We grow, we thrive,
But when ripped out of the ground, or our hearts,
Roots lay bare, raw and exposed to wither in the sun.
It’s how we lost you, as you ripped away
Like autumn leaves in the wind.
A whirling tornado whipping up into fire,
Soon brown and dried and dead.
You lied and left, and we were left,
Raw and exposed.
Little hands reached out to me like saplings
To escape the exposure
Only to be scorched by you
The forest fire.
But my little saplings
Bloomed with their burned and blistered hands,
Teary green eyes as green as shimmering leaves.
We all rose from the ashes despite you
And your toxic fumes and flames.
We rose and moved on with living.
Lies kill love, but you could not kill us.
My strong boys, like the trees of Muir Woods,
Tower over me and have created their own lives and legacies.
Strong men now, the damage their father did,
Marked into their DNA like forest fire rings within
A tree, their history buried deep but their roots
Firm and strong.
