Digital Print on Giclee Fine Art Paper, Framed

When “It’s Necessary to Talk about Trees”

- for Adrienne Rich

By Sady Strand

She made roots before redcoats and grievances on parchment.

Long before someone carved a president’s name

into her skin, Burr Oak was a sprout

bursting from a seed that resembled a buffalo.

Her roots were a road when men mapped the Missouri,

when men traveled on empty promises,

when they gave Bird Woman a name 

that was no name at all.

Her roots reached river when she was a giant under moons

touching all night sounds simply by standing still in them—

a kind of magic, this standing 

long enough,

like words disappearing 

from the base of a tree.