arboreal inheritance by Sky Davis

in the village where my grandmother’s bones

still turn the soil, trees speak in tongues.

banyan limbs spill like rivers, roots tangled with time.

we call it inheritance. we call it staying.

(but is a root not a fist?

is inheritance not the first wound we carry?)

my mother says we have the bark in our blood.

she says the mango tree still leans toward the house,

remembering who left.

i am learning how to measure loss in rings.

each year, the body thickens.

each year, the body splits.

no one asks why the tree bends —

they only marvel at the curve.

(how many names did we lose before learning

to answer to the wrong one?)

the news says the forest is dying.

a thousand fires & not one god bothered to blink.

smoke coils through the veins of forgotten soil.

i hear the crackle & think of my grandmother’s hands.

she taught me how to split a mango

without spilling the seed. told me that inside every pit

is the shadow of a forest. that some fruits

will rot before they fall.

(the first thing i learned from the trees was how to hunger.)

i see them now, lining the roads like mourners.

eucalyptus bending where the wind breaks.

jacarandas bruising the air with purple grief.

and in the gaps, the ghosts of those we cut down—

their bodies still trembling beneath our feet.

(my father says the roots don’t die. i think they only remember differently.)

so when i stand beneath a bodhi tree,

leaves trembling like hands,

i swear i can hear the soil whisper my name.

(what is belonging if not the ache of too many roots?)