My Roots

More about My Roots

- a little bit about my roots : )
... in a song now thanks to riffusion, words below, my own. Link as follows if you wish to give it a listen.
https://www.riffusion.com/song/6a73f180-f8ca-4d94-b535-5919ba67b37d

I grew up freely
walking barefoot
through forests,
sun-warmed beaches,
across marshes,
pits of gravel
where I traveled
for miles, and miles
more
upon a floodway,
fields of clover
playing for hours
making head-dresses
and necklaces of
these flowers,
I swam in
water that
was clean
enough to drink
when no one
was there—
I fell asleep in forests,
felt ants and other insects
crawl a course
harmlessly over me—
rode flexible willow trees
on waves of the wind
like a ship in the sea,
picked and ate freely
of plums and raspberries,
hazel-nuts, chokecherries,
acorns and saskatoons—
breathed in the sweet
fragrance of wild roses
chose to climb trees
with a book to read—
freed kittens trapped
upon branches
took my chances
of falling, and did
once with a kitten
held close to my chest,
safe, the rest of me
just scratched and bruised—
I gathered rocks
in my shirt
or made a pocket
of my skirt,
made mud pies of dirt,
looked for treasures
of four leaf clovers—
all this surrounded
our home
in the country,
where our father
and mother built
it from the ground
up.
It was a time of one
and two-room schools
that I loved and embraced
where we made our own rules in games,
played marbles, built forts
in the surrounding trees, unfortunately
these small schools were closed and
life expanded into a cultural shock for me,
of multi-grade, multi-roomed,
multi-layered brick blocks
of impersonal buildings
buzzing with hundreds
of children together
like bees in a hive
that truly stung me
at first
by the shock
of it all.
Eventually
I adapted,
grew
to appreciate
the variety,
complexity,
beauty
of so many
different people
and ways of
BEing.
All were times
of meditation,
study, imagination
blessed by parents
who allowed
this Freedom
with Love.
to learn directly
from within,
from them,
others,
and the earth,
to take joy, pleasure
in playing and exploring,
being creative, to
stand up for oneself and
listen to the small still voice,
to follow one's own choice
in Heart, and Mind,
in Kind
to have a strong
connection to family,
friends and the Earth.