Root System
—with lines from Joanna Chen
One morning—there you were—
a phantom hand on my back
in the morning sun
One late afternoon—
your ghost’s voice whispered
in my ear—so warm.
Today, it’s just the everyday slog
of your absence.
Time plods past—the grief
too bleak
to even change
its chameleon colors.
Last night, I inspired
a woman on the other side
of the world
to leave her bed,
run down the stairs—
step barefoot into her garden
show me the Terabinth tree
she planted there
thirty years ago.
They are solitary trees—
can regenerate
from their own dust.
*
Donna Spruijt-Metz’s debut poetry collection is ‘General Release from the Beginning of the World’ (2023, Free Verse Editions). She is an emeritus psychology professor, MacDowell fellow, rabbinical school drop-out, and former classical flutist. Her chapbooks include ‘Slippery Surfaces’, ‘And Haunt the World’ (with Flower Conroy). and ‘Dear Ghost’. Her poems and translations appear or are forthcoming at The Academy of American Poets, and in the Alaska Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, The American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Her new full-length book ‘To Phrase a Prayer for Peace’, her collaboration with Flower Conroy, ‘And Scuttle My Balloon’, and her translation of Lucas Hirsch’s book ‘Wu Wei Eats and Egg’ are forthcoming in 2025.