Roots

A prose poem that was too depressing to post around Christmas.

I pull a tangle of stalks from the potato sack, and shudder, as if I'd never seen the other side of a ground or its roots, as if the ivy doesn't string ours and our neighbors' windows together like bulbs, or the unseen strip of our time lapsed movement between streetlamps doesn't grow. I forget as we recant how a current tradition stemmed from another. As I lay a row of stockings for old pets and a new pet side by side as if it hasn't gathered new names. Hold an ornament in my hand with a picture inside of generations of us, that mother loved, and I doctored like a picture within a picture within a picture. As if the sturdiest of stems are the most intangible. Vines that tried and failed, leaving the most detailed and diverse of faces to flower in the mind instead, untouchable - turn up here and there as static in an almost completed bramble of strings as red, and green, and gold, but never make it.

The stalks boast of their superiority - rhizomatous lines that replace a life as it is cut away no matter the direction - a life, a life, a life. Unlike ours that bent and choked on themselves - a life, a life, a life lived, a life I knew, a life she knew - that life, that life.

Reviews

[Chris Shaw]

Christmas can be a lonely and depressing time for many. Your lines here gave me a real sense of loneliness, particularly looking at that photograph of past generations. Yes, it can be a dark time of year in more ways than one. First of yours I have read. Pleased to meet you.

Chris

[JustPlainHere]

Thank you so much. Yes, the holidays are a mixed bag of emotions for many. I'm glad I was successful in communicating the sense of loneliness. Thank you so much for your review, and very nice to meet you as well. I'd love to check out some of your work.

[Chris Shaw]

I hope you do, and I’m pleased I read your work as you intended. Good luck in the cafe. I’ll look out for you.

[JustPlainHere]

Thank you very much. And you as well.

[Andra Dare]

This feels like a millisecond pause that becomes a chasm and then an infinity during which everything else stops and we accidentally witness the mechanisms of the reality before lowering our eyes to half mast again. In other words, I love it.

[Fabian G. Franklin]

I once had the chore of crawling beneath our country home to retrieve potatoes for supper in the evening. We grew gardens and stored our potatoes in the cool of the crawl space on cardboard boxes broken down. I seldom tasted meat as a kid. We were poor and lived on meager country fare. Christmas, then, was a bag of fruit and nuts and maybe a few toys donated from local charities to rural households. We never had a Christmas tree and I'd never heard of Sant Claus before we got a T.V. I'd seen pieces of candy shaped like him but that was the extent of my knowledge. I called the candy "old man" suckers. I'm still not big on trees or Santa. I enjoyed the read.

[NelliKong]

I understand how Christmas can be a rough time for individuals. I was able to feel the emotion that you displayed in this poem. I liked how you used photos to show the imagery as a way to show the reader past generations. However, using the photo concept you can create new memories even though the past generations may not be here to celebrate with you physically. Those past photos will always come to life in your heart.

[JustPlainHere]

They always do. And that's such a wonderful thought. I'm glad the feeling came across in this for you, and really appreciate your insights into this, so thank you again.

[hazy]

Beautiful, the metaphor of the vines connecting everything in our lives is powerful. The repetition at the end is great.

[JustPlainHere]

Thank you so much!

[Throwing Romeo]

Poetry that moves with subtle
cadence grace and humbling
tones blure the line from prose,
poetry into storytelling's way.
Glad you're here.
Hope you'll stay.

R.

[JustPlainHere]

Thank you so much! I look forward to spending more time here.

[willweb]

Wow, very sad poem that is dark in its feeling and emotions though kind of a lighthearted romp through a season that is often associated with depression. It as well feels breathless in more than just reading terms. Very cool.

If you are new here, welcome.

[JustPlainHere]

Thank you so much for the kind review, and for the welcome. Looking forward to reading more and getting to know people.