Within These Roots
In this poem Chloe Dent, S9 freedom unfolds through the journey of a young tree, highlighting the fragile balance between nature and humanity.
Chloe Dent
Senior 9
Photography by Jasmine Dent
Art Co-Director, 2025
As I twirled and fluttered down, cast from my mother’s embrace, the wind swept me gently to my new resting place.
With blissful ignorance, I was young and f r e e, my mind a fresh canvas, everywhere was beauty.
As I grew through the grass and struggled through the blades, the air was awake, as I began my crusade.
With lullabies of laughter, limericks of lovers, and ballads of broken h e a r t s, the benevolent brook carried away any shattered parts.
One, two, three, my leaves began to grow, the green shoots sprinkled with hope, as I gazed over dreamers and anchored my roots.
Little, by little, I faced a daunting world: the mud, the dog, its malevolent paw, trainers just missing as they carelessly jog.
My roots carved deeper into the soil, collecting stories from far and wide as I examine each sound, each person, each passing car.
I watch. I wait, for them to see, and absorb the finite b e a u t y of this wondrous world.
But they still hurry past, and instead pump fumes, and e x p a n d into vast forests, as I watch them slash and burn sacred trees.
While I watch and wait for them to see that their greed will get them nowhere: choking skies, grasping for air, once beautiful forests left dry and bare.
Each root of wisdom s p r e a d s and embeds into the soil, as I silently implore them to stop their futile toil.
Each leaf, each branch holds knowledge that I cannot share, muted, whilst they axe, burn, construct, like I was never there.
And yet all I can do is watch and wait, awaiting my fate, See them slash at fellow trees for money- they take the bait.
Until it’s just me and I see the sneer as he saws, the power grants him ‘dignity’.
I fall, silently, solemnly until I’m in a fireplace, heat burning through me until there is no trace of my wisdom apart from the embers, settling on a lonely chair, yet I still watch and wait, watch and wait there, one day, they’ll realise this will get them n o w h e r e.