ALLEGORY Poem: Roots, by Lee Molloy

Anger is the antidote for those scarred souls
Who know the impact of their pain but not the source.

Smacked by the branches of injustice,
They put reason to the side
And chop indiscriminately at all the trees around them –
Forgetting that so long as the roots remain intact,
The branches will always grow back.

Innocence is irrelevant –
Guilty is the charge
When rage is the judge
And the injured be the executioner.
The branches suffer for the pain they reflect,
While the roots take shelter beneath the surface and denounce
The machete-wielding madmen who swing in all directions,
Certain beyond all doubt that each swipe
Brings them closer to the thing they call progress.

Then, when limbs grow weary and trees stand bare,
The madmen delight in their destruction
And applaud their actions all the way home.
While the slain branches lie atop the soil,
Becoming the fuel that those roots need
To grow branches once again.

Author: poetryfest

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