Root Words
By Niall Twohig
Dear Aislynn:
At 42,
I see myself
in this half-browned leaf:
a picture of entropy.
Each ache and pain
speaks to that law
of decline,
that law of heat
giving way to cold.
That’s nature, we say.
Time flies.
But I feel
some Thing
unnatural
hastens me,
hastens many
to the fall.
I feel It, now,
Shaking the Tree,
loosening the leaves,
laughing at the fall.
This Thing,
fears entropy,
fears Its own demise,
So it bleeds our green,
steals our warmth,
to delay Its dying.
Time, Its cold hand grips.
It winds us up
clocks us out
without giving us time
to hear, to touch, to taste, to smell
and see.
Numbness is Its Way.
A numbness unto death.
But I can’t stand that
(Ma and Da taught me better)
So, I’m stealing time,
restoring its fullness
with these root words.
Words that
reconnect me to myself,
reconnect me to you,
reconnect us to Source.
Writing these root words,
senses come to life:
A fresh look
at fallen leaf
reveals a Tree
that cannot be shaken,
reveals a law
that exceeds entropy:
Energy can
neither be
created nor destroyed.
I see myself in this leaf,
sensed through these burning senses.
I see myself in this Tree,
written into every fibre;
Every double helix: Its root.
And when I look at you, dear one,
I see this Tree too, enmeshing you,
enmeshing us, in Dream Time.
We will never be shaken apart
by that which knows not circles
by that which knows not root
nor flow.