Uprooted

Uprooted

Poem by Alice Weldon about loss of trees and celebration of local and immigrant workers clearing the forest.

Uprooted (Fri Sept 27, 2024)

Horizontal now
side by side they lie.
First their trunks reach out
to my view, before the eye
catches the wider, thicker
base, the rich dirt round the roots
meant to hold tight, even the sicker
trees.

What about the deer?
One asked with head bowed,
mouth agape, through tears.
Now with the wind less loud
all could–who would–wonder and ask
what about the consuming looming work,
a truly unimaginable task
now?

Uprooted and fallen,
these trees remind
us of humans: appalling
the way they are knocked down, maligned,
described as criminals, aliens,
animals–all of them–
just for changing their residence:
Here.

Despite such storms
of hatred, they try,
work and give, though torn,
ripped from home, uprooted by
devastating storms of violence,
poverty, hopelessness there,
only to get here and sense
loss.

Unlike our downed trees,
though, these humans
stand up off their knees
and make new lives sooner
than most of us can fathom.
Uprooted, yes, but pushing down roots
to survive–and fill the chasm
deep.

We can mourn all life
lost forever or only a while.
These local trees’ fate we fight,
but know the saws make way for men who pile
the horizontal trunks–whose reach
once caused us to smile–
that have left too much–all and each–
space.

Our new neighbors here,
local as we, deserve more space,
shouldn’t leave, and for sure should hear
that though so many face
heightened insults, threats and scorn,
mass uprooting won't be easy
because most of us don’t want them torn
more.



Oct 4, 2024

Much more sky
stares down and across
as ever more trees lie
down, where before the loss,
now clear, was one private stretch
of green, turning orange or red.
Now the sounds are wretched:
Saws.

Why do I stay
listening and watching?
It’s like a funeral in a way,
or maybe just clutching
at hope that fewer are sacrificed?
But just maybe it’s the sweating men
most of whom look mountain white.
Fair…

…to profile them
or anyone? No, loudly
I tell me, here, when
my prejudice proudly
proclaims preference
for the non-English speaking,
feeling they need more deference.
Wrong!

The humans cleaning
up the fallen and leaning trees
deserve no different screening
than those whose home she/he/they flees.
Though now I hear English only
with the sawing, rustling and crashing,
other heard accents have shown me
them.

The them uprooted
and the them deeply imbedded
need the work, both so suited
to such physical strain. Indebted
am I to all who here labor
and maybe earn dollars plus wood to burn.
In this tragedy we all are neighbors.
Yes?


October 16

All I can give now
is my pledge to keep the yes,
the ¡sí! as on knees I bow,
giving thanks plus my very best
promise to cross the emptied space
and meet both sides and care for all
whether uprooted or afraid their place
goes…

…to those who came
among those here born,
those who are defamed
so like these clinging–not torn–
but deeply afraid of losing
their homeland to those uprooted
who now are among us by choosing
here.

Trees by the thousands
perished. Immigrants by the millions
tremble. Yet grace has found us
working through divisions, as civilians
and government officials, giving
and taking, shedding tears and prayers
for the dead, dying, AND living:
All.

Alice Weldon, Asheville NC