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The Nature of Roots

Roots and Branches.

By Antoni De'LeonPublished 10 months ago • 1 min read

We lean into symbolism, transformation, and the quiet philosophical pulse beneath living things.

A branching - roots, trunk, crown - humans as “higher animals”,

the shared origins with the lower species of the animal kind -

a comparing of our Roots and Branches

Photo by Anthony Sebbo on Unsplash

Are we that different...

We rose from the same dark cradle,

the soil where life first learned its trembling name.

Lower creatures still carry that silence

the pulse of mud, the law of hunger,

the simple grammar of survival.

But humans grew restless in the root-light,

feeling for something beyond the warm, blind earth.

We stretched upward like question marks - seeking

like curious branches aching for a sky - too high

beyond that which we could not yet imagine.

Animals remember the ground.

They move with the memory of moss,

with the certainty of seasons,

with no need to rewrite the wind.

Photo by Alex Seinet on Unsplash

But we—

we are the ones who broke the surface,

dragging our shadows behind us

seeking what our ancestors could not find.

They who learned to carve symbols into bark,

to name the constellations,

to ask why the night keeps its secrets.

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

Still, the truth is simple:

our roots are theirs.

Our bones echo the same ancient blueprint.

Our hearts beat with the same old drum

that once guided the first creature

to lift its head toward dawn.

Photo by Luz Mendoza on Unsplash

And yet we branched -

into thought, into being,

into the strange architecture of dreams.

We built ladders out of language, seeking heaven

but finding only bridges made of dust,

and we called it awaking, unfurling.

But the lower animals remind us

of the ground from which we came -

the humility of fur, feather, and instinct,

the wisdom of living without

the burden of endless questions.

Photo by van asten maarten on Unsplash

We are the tree that remembers the seed,

the wanderer who remembers the cave,

the higher animal who still hears

the low, ancient whisper

of the earth that made us.

Photo by Bhavya Pratap Singh on Unsplash

nature poetryFree Verse

About the Creator

Antoni De'Leon

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content. (Helen Keller).

Tiffany, Dhar, JBaz, Rommie, Grz, Paul, Mike, Sid, NA, Michelle L, Caitlin, Sarah P. List unfinished.

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    Written by Antoni De'Leon