Solstice Re-pot

more than the obvious metaphor
of depth for roots to fully extend
of leaves elevated to eat blue light
of fingers smooshing generative dirt

it’s when I hear myself sing to you
crassula ovata, as I upheave you
croon ballads as I displace you
shawl melody around earthquake 

as if to say to your bright fat leaves
nothing is promised, sweet green girl
I know the terror of unhoming
dance this one with me

Copyright © 2024 by Shailja Patel. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 20, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“On the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, which is the longest day of the year in my birthplace at the equator, I was gifted a jade plant. Transplanting it to a larger pot awakened my frozen grief at being forced from my home. Lifting its roots out of its soil moved me from a stance of human supremacy as omnipotent plant guardian to the tenderness of shared trans-species vulnerability. As I write, the United States–Israel genocide and ecocide are ongoing in Palestine. The greed driving them is the same greed that caused global boiling. In this great unhoming of all life, who do we choose to be?”
—Shailja Patel