Revisionist Poetry – “Root-Voices” – Deep Roots, v.4

They came with metal mouths that sang.
The trees folded like paper prayers.
We waited until the machines slept.

Hole-Wood smells of saw and salt.
We call the stumps throatstones.
We press our ears and the earth answers.

deep voice:
— we were columns, we held the sky.
— we swallowed rain like coins.
— we remember the names of every shadow.

thin voice (like a radio whisper):
— elm. alder. hem-lock.
— say them gentle. say them sharp.
— say them so the bones don’t forget.

clicking voice (small fast):
— tunnels. tunnels. tunnels—
— coal-caves, cathedrals, libraries for beetles.
— bring a pebble. bring a ribbon.

We crawl into root-mouths with spoons.
The dirt tastes older than the road.
Our knees learn the grammar of knots.

A root hums like a bicycle chain;
another coughs, slow as a bell.
They speak in weather and in the names of mice.

deep voice, patient:
— when they cut us they left prayers half-sawed.
— we keep the words inside our rings.
— sometimes we cough up small maps.

thin voice, urgent:
— listen— a train that never ran;
— a violin string taut under town;
— a child’s lost shoe, a thimble, a promise.

We answer with stones, with leaves.
We tie our shoelaces into small flags.
We chant soft names until the voices unspool.

chorus (many small mouths):
— keep the light. keep the names. keep the knot.
— keep the small treaties of pebble and paper.
— we will teach you the secret stairs.

Once, one root said my name back.
It sounded like water on a tin roof.
I put my hand in the hollow and it fit.

At dusk the roots sing like someone knitting.
Sometimes they tell jokes about the moon.
Sometimes they tell the sound of axes, exactly.

We make altars of crab-apples.
We bow to stumps as if to saints.
Our play is prayer, our hide-and-seek is a census.

deep voice, lower:
— do not call us gone.
— call us asleep under your feet.
— call us the slow inside the fast.

clicking voice, bright:
— come back with a ribbon if you forget.
— bring a matchbox, a feather, a coin that jingles.
— bring your small brave names.

I learned to listen like a mouth learns a song.
They taught me how to read a buried hallway:
soft clay is a pillow, dark root is a rope,
sawdust is the snow of a place that still dreams.

When I sleep the roots tug me in tiny pulls.
They offer stories stitched with worm-silk.
They hum the geography of other quiet towns.

We call the men Progress.
Progress calls us small.
We call the roots by the names they give us.

all voices, overlapping, like leaves rubbing:
— remember. remember. remember—
— say us. say us. say us—
— and when you leave, leave a ribbon that will not rot.

I promised once, with my mouth full of dirt,
to come back and press my ear to the long dark.
They promised, too, in the way roots promise: slow, certain, and wet.

We play there still, half-singing, half-listening,
and sometimes the earth taps back, keeping time.