Roots in the Dark

Below the surface, nothing moves like light. The roots push down through resistance, through the weight of centuries compressed to soil, feeling for water that tastes like beginning. They split stone without anger, patient as prayer, their hunger a slow grammar the earth understands— a question asked in silence, answered in spring when what grew blind in darkness breaks the surface green. What the tree never sees holds it upright: the intricate fist of roots that learned to let go, to give away everything it takes in, to feed what it cannot touch. There is a wholeness in the unseen half, the part that cannot boast or break or bend to wind, that simply knows: to stand tall, you must be willing to disappear.