ArunDitha (b. 1988)
FEATURES / TRACK CHANGES
The Twisted Root of My Heart
Written by ArunDitha
Dated 30 Nov 2020
What is a poem but the story of a moment, the first droplet from a nourishing storm? It has been a long time since I revised an old poem. My work used to pour out of me unexpectedly, with just enough warning to collect the spill. Then I would view the finished piece like a sculpture of stone, solid and permanent.
The twisted root of my heart
is sprouting fern,
uncoiling; palms opening in surrender.
The knots are still there underneath,
falling apart, keeping together.The dirt in my belly stirs,
fertile and full of wormsthough I am not of this earth.
Shake me from sleep
into a quiet glasshouse.Take me away from my
self, to a nameless garden.
There I will forgive
every time your eyes saw mebut I was not there.
Now I have learned to see that every poem is a sculpture of ice. As the inciting moment fades into the past, the poem is able to return again into liquid form, ready to be reformed and frozen as a new sculpture, a new story. The raw material of the poem - water consisting of words, images and ideas, becomes the already manifested world from where I tell a new story.
Within the earth of my belly,
worms of the past writhe in darkness,
fertile stems creep towards the surface.Within the earth of my belly
knots have formed, coming together,
pulsing apart with the quake of time.From the twisted root of my heart springs
wisdom, blessed lily opening;
face to the sun in surrender.From the twisted root of my heart springs
a garden that forgets my name,
where sleeping beasts rest andforgive themselves for their formation,
where the caves of my memory collapse
to become dirt which births a new tree.
With this revision I am taking many of the same images, words and emotions to create a new piece. The mood sustains. The length and rhythm is similar, with more repetition to suggest the constancy of being trapped in the same cycle before the past collapses to birth the tree.
My emotional states, my current story and experience is what my poetry comes from. Any revision is only possible when I respect this as my truth and revise the poem into my newest wisdom.
