Roots Without Soil
## I
Tonight, I dig up buried footsteps,
each stone beneath my feet weighs heavy with goodbye.
My shadow walks backward through forgotten maps,
following roads that no longer know my name—
a compass spinning wild and blind,
a voice that stumbles over foreign words.
## II
The city erases me as I disappear—
street signs fade to unfamiliar letters,
windows forget the sound of my footsteps.
Even the trees want to leave—
their roots pulling back from earth
where jasmine once carried my mother's lullabies.
## III
In this place between places,
I am both the one who watches and the one watched,
counting the price of phone calls that never come,
measuring birthdays that dissolve
like salt in September rain.
## IV
Exile pretends to be a choice—
I tell myself I left by wanting,
that my need for elsewhere
was desire, not desperation.
But in the quiet before dawn,
when memory meets the fading dark
and borders soften
like watercolor in the rain,
I murmur the truth to my reflection—
in words I'm learning to forget.
## V
Here, in the country of absence,
I draw new maps from ash and remembering.
X marks where home once called,
where doors opened wide like mother's embrace.
## VI
The trees teach me their wisdom:
bend but never break,
learn to grow roots in temporary soil.
Tonight, I follow their lesson:
find belonging in the leaving,
make exile into earth worth tending.
Let my name take root in this going—
watch it bloom in borrowed ground,
and call it home at last.
Copyright ©
Saeed Koushan
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