Homing

When I was pregnant I ate earth blood, gulped the soil in handfuls, devoured seeds, worms, weeds, guzzled groundwater, grew limbs heavy with acorns and shivering wet leaves while the cardinals blessed my head with holy rain, crowned in dandelion, until finally my roots dug into the loam, so entrenched under rock and weight of love I couldn’t move, could only watch as the wind plucked you from my bark breast, and no matter how many holes you pecked in my sides you could not come back inside, so you blind fell into flight, and, wounds leaking of sap and the knowing of your absence, I waited for a thousand years, so you could one day split me open and count my heartwood rings, and see just how far down the roots go.