I have no roots –

only memories.

 

Present becomes past before my eyes

Life is lived, recorded there, somehow,

More or less imperfectly inscribed

Within my head, thus stored behind my brow.

These things exist for me, just in my mind,

For if I try to seek them out again

There’s only ever something new to find:

Nothing in the stillness can remain.

 

I have no roots -

only origins.

 

Generations of lost shadows wait -

Those that passed before me and my time.

Countless parents birthed, so grand and great

Gifted on to me their long bloodline -

They pass me only this, and nothing more

As all the seeds and memories they have sown

I can accept, and thus be grateful for,

But I will shape and mould them as my own.

 

I have no roots –

I have wings.

 

I shall not be attached and trapped somewhere

Neither tied in shackles to my past

Nor by the future terribly ensnared

No ghosts nor guesses ever hold me fast:

I’ll take my leave of all the memories

And of history, for all its wealth

I’ll keep by me only what I please

And live to rebuild all the rest myself.