Tapping the Root

Digging in clogged earth, after rain,

Mud clings, roots cling,

Unlike the mandrake, shriek not,

Ribes, ten years in the ground,

Beauty drained by neighbour trees,

Gives up slowly. The tap root

Tunnels down, fleeing the fork,

Younger roots surrender.

How we depend on them, broken roots,

Shallow memories ease out whole,

The tap root plunges, slips, snakes, breaks

Onto the page, the canvas of the present,

Stretchered on the frame of now and then,

The bearer trudges, hurries through mud;

Calling, crying for attention,

Struggling through clogged earth.

©Terry Hodgson2020