Spoiled Roots

Beneath the loam, a bitter thread,

Old lies sleeping with the dead.

Salt in veins the rain can’t clear,

Rust in seasons, year to year.

Roots drink deep of what we hid—

Tastes like ash in every grid.

Sweet above, but sour below,

Fruit remembers what we sow.

Name the poison—don’t disguise;

Bleed the ground and purge the ties.

Spoiled roots—draw out the stain,

Let the black run off like rain.

Cut the knots we learned as truth,

Free the water, free the roots.

Spoiled roots—no more to keep,

Turn the toxin out of sleep.

What we bury breeds the bruise—

We decide what we refuse.

Family wires through clay and bone,

Passing bitterness like loan.

Stories salted, prayers untrue,

Leaching through the orchard’s blue.

Shovel in the troubled seam,

Turn the earth until it breathes.

Lace the furrow, plant a vow—

Let the living learn the how.

Name the poison—don’t disguise;

Bleed the ground and purge the ties.

Spoiled roots—draw out the stain,

Let the black run off like rain.

Cut the knots we learned as truth,

Free the water, free the roots.

Spoiled roots—no more to keep,

Turn the toxin out of sleep.

What we bury breeds the bruise—

We decide what we refuse.

Flush the bed with open sky,

Lime the wound and let it dry.

Tend the dark with patient hands,

Teach the soil to change its plans.

If the past still burns the throat,

Filter grief through love we wrote.

Scald—rinse—pull it through.

Breathe—once—start anew.

Spoiled roots—now let it pass,

Feed the future, cleanse the glass.

What was bitter, taught the cost—

What we keep is never lost.

Spoiled roots—release, forgive,

Make the ground a place to live.

From below, the sweetness moves—

We decide what grows—and proves.

Spoiled roots—release, forgive,

Make the ground a place to live.

From below, the sweetness moves—

We decide what grows—and proves.