a tree of infinite roots

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(^^ little watercolor tree painting by me - with a filter.)

The more I write anew, the more I write the same. Every sentence forward, re-writes two back, and so forth, and so on. This year, I'm not sure if I'm trying to write something new, or something old, but in the end haven't we grown from the same tree?

This too, is sometimes how I feel about researching ancestry, every discovery breathes new life, while just as much is forgotten. And if I know anything it is that I will never know everything.

But isn't the sun bright? And the grass green? And the flower blooming?

All these roots entwined entwined entwined, only more infinite the further you reach, only endless all at once when you try to contain it, only as far as the bird might try to fly.

Looking forward to seeing, and growing, and remembering.

Thank you for reading with me, I will be reading along with you too.

"The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven,
and it was visible to the end of the whole earth."

- Daniel 4:11

goals (badge thread)
Write 30 Poems
Read every NaPo thread
Write 60 comments
Keep up with NaPo hosting things
Write 1 song

every year the spring returns
2024 NaPo - watercolor flowers & other pretty fading things
2023 NaPo - & all these loose ends will bind into a net
2022 NaPo - anchors tied to paper boats
2021 NaPo - years lost to locusts
2020 NaPo Pt I - i swear all the birds will live until the end
2020 NaPo Pt II - private reflections; cheap cheap software
2019 NaPo - love and complementary colors
2018 NaPo - heavy dreams & lofty responsibilities
2017 NaPo - a collage of mismatched contemplations
Camp NaPo - 2017 logbook, 2020 logbook, 2021 NaPo Week 2024 NaPo Week

Spoiler

other version of my watercolor tree... just saving here for safe-keeping

1. i'm not afraid of losing you 4.1.25
2. homecoming 4.3.25
3. flammable 4.4.25
4. absence 4.10.25
5. the good gardener 4.22.25
6. our cursed tree 4.23.25
7. from dust to dust 4.23.25
8. and we became a living soul. 4.23.25
9. Gethsemane 4.23.25
10. i won't be your olive branch 4.23.25
11. the tree of life 4.25.25
12. burning 4.26.25
13. this journey is too much for you. 4.26.25
14. Absalom, Absalom - stones in my pocket 4.26.25
15. growth 4.26.25
16. one day i will return to the beginning 4.26.25
17. swimming lessons 4.26.25
18. hope so 4.26.25
19.carrying 4.26.25
20. time is relentless 4.26.25
21. someone long ago 4.26.25
22. be free 4.30.25
23.the end | or the beginning 5.1.25
24. in the beginning 5.1.25
25. one tree 5.5.25
26. heritage 5.5.25
27. to love the world so freely 5.5.25
28. Garden Reflection 5.16.25
29. mulberry tree
30. an unfinished thread

1. i'm not afraid of losing you 4.1.25

Spoiler

TEXT VERSION:
i'm not afraid of losing you

it is not easy to lose someone; in the same way you might brush out the sand 
from your shoes after a day at the beach, there's always a little left
in your hair, in your fingernails, in your car, in your lungs - and 
maybe just as much of you left somewhere at the bottom of the lake;
once a person has been found, they can't be unfound, 
this, i suppose, is why we pretend we believe in ghosts
and i swear i can feel the hurricanes three generations back 
somewhere in my bones; we're still drowning - 
and i tell my mother, to tell her mother, to tell her mother 
that i won't be home in time for dinner, but to keep the light on 
because i intend to return; and i always do - even if it’s stretched
across 800 miles, even if the tide pulls me away, even if we don't
remember to pick up the phone because we're all busy, i still
return - and you always do too. it is not easy to lose someone;
in the same way you might pretend to leave a place, 
there always seems to be a map carved into the way 
your body reorients the sky to every place you've called home
unintentionally making mapkeys out of memories. the tree 
always knows where its roots stretch to, no matter how far it reaches.
it is not easy to lose someone; no, in fact it is painfully complicated
to dissect the parts of yourself that were bound to another, 
without the benefit of medical equipment, your only choice
is to deconstruct yourself; unbraiding hair from hair, hand from
woven hand, breath from breath, words unsaid and said long ago,
but there is always so much more sand, when the tide returns. 

Spoiler

Thanks so much @Liminality! I'm glad you felt it was cohesive! I'm certainly always partial to sand / tide metaphors myself! Looking forward to the month!

2. homecoming 4.3.2025

this year we bought a house; and i wonder if
my chronic home-sickness will now be cured, if
my home-searching will finally find a place to root
and latch to new coordinates, if humans are like
hermit crabs searching for suitably sized shells,
if my nostalgia will grab ahold of new memories,
take on the adaptations needed to survive
in my newly found surroundings and
become accustomed to new habits,
could the coffee here taste just as warm,
could the stars settle back to their places
in the sky, and the seasons become predictable,
could the aching for another place, and the impulse
to wander away become a dream of another time
i wonder if a person can become at-home again.

3. flammable 4.4.25



PLAIN TEXT VERSION:

Spoiler

sometimes the weight

of every generation’s unmet expectations
threaten to bury me alive
in the mines with my grandfather;
(the company-store does not sell salvation on-tap
for store-credit, so this is all we can afford
with loose pocket-change from dad)
-he always promised his children would do better,

& i hold those promises like a threat rather a destiny -
the coal dust still rattles in my lungs
all these years later, & sometimes in this haze i don’t see
the sun
(all i feel are ghost-hands pressing down
on my shoulders, foreboding of the fire-death,
i too have inherited)

and i tell myself if i could just grow feathers
wispy-&-dream-like;
my children wouldn’t become ashen-branches,

they could graft
unto the wings of flight-birds and learn
what it means to fly

unburdened, light-like-air, & no one knows your name,

& finally, all this dust would burn away

I'm going to reply to all those lovely comments of encouragement in a moment, but let's catch up on a little poetry first!

4. absence 4.10.25

The mighty tree fallen,
you can trace her rings of each year lived,
an atlas of time rippling outward to the edge.

But I've heard sometimes,
when the year is harsh -
and the winter long,
and the spring quick,
when life is heavy, no ring will form -
just the absence left behind.

And I've often wondered, who discovered
the missing rings, did an elderly arborist
who had tenderly planted a sycamore as a child,
find her fallen one day from a storm, did he
count off her rings on his own withered hands,
and worry he had lost track, did he
pull out his journal of his life and the tree's so intertwined,
remembering the date she was planted,
and the day she fell, and every day in-between,
did he weep when he found the inconsistency;
too few rings, for too many years.

I too have sometimes known the bitter absence
which speaks of what was left behind, and what wasn't,
the empty chair, the broken promise, the hollow memories,
and the silence in between that remembers
what would never be.

I don't begrudge the way I've grown,
those places have gone smooth, and
the hollowness almost filled.
The past cannot be changed, only known.
But I have promised myself -
I will not become another inherited ache,
I will not be phantom grit under her nails,
or the empty breath in his lungs,
I will not disappear when the spring doesn't bloom,
or the sun doesn't shine.

I won't let the branches after me,
wonder where I left, and if I'll ever return,
whether the winter is harsh,
or the spring quick,
I will be here.