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.
The Consolations of Writing 