Grandeur of Roots

My days amid this

earth-place have betrayed

the grandeur of my roots

as they lay exposed

all about me.

The places where

I have held tightly 

to the dirt of

ancestry, faith, and

a deep, rich

ability to give life

to life again with 

the crafting and 

laying down

of words.

As the wash

of time and abrasion

of struggle have

made away with 

all that lay about me -

protecting my means

of gaining nourishment

and self - 

I look to

the beauty of the exposed

and gnarled pieces of

what has rooted me here;

held me fast for my

reaching into the

waterways that slake

my thirst and longing.

In them is who I have

become and of course

who I have 

ALWAYS BEEN.