I started this journey in a place of only knowing what I read. I found this journey only when grief took the lead and I needed to save myself by finding the woman I had lost.
Roots and Wings
I. The Leaving
She left when the love did,
packing her grief like a tattered dirty map.
“Seek happiness here”, it whispered,
so, she followed its lies.
In foreign cities, she drank laughter
And comfort from strangers' cups,
but the taste was always borrowed,
Burned and bitter.
In temples, she pressed her palms together,
praying for a self she couldn't name.
In beds of men who loved in fragments,
she collected their broken edges
and called it healing.
How do you lose what you never owned?
Meanwhile, her reflection grew thin,
a wisp of smoke where a woman once stood.
II. The Mountain
Then, the mountain, above her green and tall.
Its silence was so loud it split her open.
A tree, gnarled and wise, stood in the middle,
Proud and tall, thick gnarled roots like
A grandmother’s hands,
Full of wisdom and soothing it asked:
"Where are your roots, child?
Who tends your soil?"
She knelt, digging fingers into earth,
cold, then warm, then alive.
Her hands found what her heart forgot:
a thread of belonging,
woven deep beneath the endless
empty wanderlust.
"Are you free as the sparrow?
Happy as the river singing over stones?
Do you love as the meadow loves—
not asking to be seen?"
Her voice, a leaf trembling in wind:
"I lost her...
the girl I was before
I begged the world to name me,
I could no longer remember
Her smile, her laugh, her joy."
III. The Reckoning
"Then ask yourself," rustled the branches,
"Were you kind when it cost you nothing?
Did you learn even in the breaking?
Did you guard your peace
without building walls?"
Her silence was the answer.
"Now listen," murmured the tree,
"The birds do not apologize for flying.
The river does not bargain with the sea.
The flowers do not wilt
to prove they can bloom.
How do you lose what you never owned?
Let the sun warm your shoulders.
Let the moon drink your sorrows.
Then descend,
and meet yourself
on the path you fled."
IV. The Return
She walked down,
not lighter, but rooted,
carrying the mountain's song:
Fly without permission.
Flow without apology.
Feed the world with your bloom,
but keep your own soil rich.
And when the old grief knocks,
show it the door
you grew from your spine.
Even though I struggle and some days are hard, I do my best to keep moving forward with honesty and humility. Giving myself the grace I extend to others. Dorie Snow
Nice poem.