We have eaten these flowers so long we are more than half blossom, drugged ourselves on pollen, white knot of roots, slow uncurling of daylight. We turn to the sun, spread open to its impatient ministry, skin hungry and grasping. Escape? Drag your men to their boats, brace your eyes open with splinters, shake in the grateful return of long-harbored tension, but do not speak of escape. Do not pretend to a valor we lack – it is not cowardice that keeps us here, not lassitude that pins us to these broad fields. For we have sunk roots here, spread out through the earth in circles and hillsides, built our cities free of your shadows and roofs. The spring shakes us up again, lifts winds up against us to drive us away from your shores, to settle and sink down, swell forth and grow, this is our knowledge, our hidden lore, no secret, no mystery. For you have spoken of us; you have worked fields as we have worked fields, been driven before the wind as we are driven before the wind, known your child grown old and away. Go, then; but do not name our strengths weakness. Return to your roots.