Redwood trees have lived on Earth for over 240 million years.
Homo sapiens, about 200 thousand.
Despite massive size,
old growth redwood
root systems are shallow.
Trees reach 350 feet tall
yet don’t topple in the strongest winds.
Each one’s roots interlace
with its neighbors’ roots,
creating a vast network of support
unseen on the surface.
They hold on for a thousand,
two thousand years, maybe more,
all the while showing us
how to grow up.
This poem first appeared in Portals (Middle Creek, 2021).
—
Laura Grace Weldon lives in a township too tiny for traffic lights where she works as a book editor, teaches writing workshops, serves as Braided Way editor, and chronically maxes out her library card. Laura was Ohio’s 2019 Poet of the Year and is the author of four books.
