Roots

In Sacramento the land rolls
around creeks and gulches
and the live oak trees
are everywhere
tall and rough
their small leaves grow
in shiny clusters
of a particular green
a strange aura seeps from their limbs
something like a whisper
moves through their leaves
hushed voices of other times
lost and hidden
places some dreamy memory
some song that calls from
the ground
where their roots
go down, down
into a mystery
of ages
held deep in the aging
heart of the earth
these are the trees of the long
fertile valleys
where the rains fall like
a blessing over the black earth
and the sun blazes its
bounty across the flowering
fields

in childhood
I walked among these trees
played in the creeks
with my shovel
hurried through the deep
gulches at twilight
and when
from my long journeys
I return to them
they cover me with their
green branches
and fill me with a
dreaming not my own

I go to these trees
as I would to a lover
my heart spilling its
beautiful sorrow
moss-covered babies
tucked among the roots
dreams buried
in small boxes
preciously laid
strange aura seeps
from the branches
murmur of voices
rustles through leaves
into the mysterious trees
I am received

Copyright © 2002 The President and Fellows of Harvard College.
All rights reserved. Comments. Last modified Wed, Dec 18, 2002.