Muddied Roots by Keara Huson

To my parent’s daughter,

who dances still
in privacy of kitchen walls – glow of door agape
with harmonized hum of icebox B flat

i ask you not forget from whence you came
however tempting so

to trade the rain-soaked earth
in which your transplanted roots first found hold
with strength molded in misted mud

for idealist dream of voyage
and to run – so unbearably hard and fast
your own lungs cannot make pace

i ask not that you remain – buried by home-soil
rather carry with you its memory

in dimmed confessional of vegetable drawer
serenade where you first found home, no matter how far
for it shaped you, and there your roots remain