Tangles of Hair and Roots

Olive Grove, Crete

Can you imagine 

falling into the long tendrils and tangles 

of the scruffy old wise woman’s hair? 

She lives on the mountains tracing trails older than the oldest human, 

routes traversed by the ancestors of the pussycat cleaning its paws across the room 

and created by the single file marching of sedate beasts who live in the moment, 

ignoring the one who hunts for its belly now rumbles replete, 

its yawn smells of digestion, and 

its movements echo the gentle fall of huge snowflakes drifting silent in the night. 

Can you imagine 

the tendrils and tangles of this world we’ve constructed 

that we cannot seem to find our way out of, 

for every tendril we push away becomes another one wrapping itself around an ankle, 

tripping us until we fall into the tangles ahead and become invisible. 

It’s one thing to disappear into the tangles of nature 

because death there is quick and merciful. 

But the tangles of the world of blinding light and rapid thoughts 

across a circuit board that is constantly overloaded 

is terrifying for in there death is slow and painful, 

dragging one along behind for decades dripping bloody entrails and 

severed limbs so that we are unable to climb out or 

push ourselves in a different direction. 

Ancient Olive Tree, Crete

Can you imagine 

being the tendrils untangled that seek out new lands, 

new paths, the way less traveled, or a 

tendril snipped and lifted high in the beak of a broad-winged friend 

who carries one off to a place of solitude that is still unique 

yet blessed by the sacred song of silence in one’s own head ... 

silence so that we can hear the voices of insects, birds, trees, 

sliding rocks, and thunder riding the lightening. 

Can you imagine 

being given the tendrils and tangles of the hawk’s nest 

in which to curl up and rest, 

or those of woodsy floor 

where thousands of lives have been before,

have birthed and died within the tangles of roots 
that welcome us home without demands or judgment.

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Streaming free-write from the ClarityWorks prompt "tendrils and tangles."