Boab

Upside-down-like, you bulb from earth –

your beauty breaks in root-like branches.

Spindly fingers reach to sky,

gaunt and stretching, delicate,

your certain trunk a monument,

a stout and stolid testament

to passing years, millennia.

Shedding pods to paint; a home,

yet prison; sacred; den for slaves –

drawing, standing, reaching out –

a sign for us of hands which hold

in spite of everything.