Gifted Roots
The calendar chews the days, tearing them from time’s grasp.
a handful of hours lies on the ground, like winter ash.
between the pages, breath breaks and then ignites anew.
the house holds the void between yesterday and tomorrow.
from stolen moments, the roots of unborn dreams feed themselves.
they receive hours that will never see the sun’s light.
underground, the sprouts learn the taste of silence.
the sap becomes memory of what has not been.
the imaginary tree stretches its branches toward a sky that does not exist.
the knots of the earth count the days that will not be extinguished.
undergrass breathes the promise of a silent spring.
every root grows, nourishing the absence that remains.
if one day time returned the stolen days,
perhaps the new trees would remember never having been born.
meanwhile, the calendar remains caressing the forest’s shadow.
and the forest writes its history of roots into the soil.
Explanation
The text configures itself as a poetic meditation on the nature of unlived time and the persistence of memory in the absence of concrete events. The work abandons chronological linearity to explore an inner space, a metaphorical landscape where time is less a flow and more a malleable material, almost an organic substance that is “chewed” and torn apart.
The thematic core revolves around absence (the void, stolen days, what has not been). Time here is not measured by clocks or calendars, but by its capacity to generate roots. These roots, the central and potent metaphor, are those of the “unborn dreams” and nourish existence in an underground terrain, that of imagination and potential memory.
The use of the subterranean image is crucial: it represents the realm of the unconscious, where growth happens in silence, far from direct light and immediate promises (the “silent spring”). It is a place of emotional metabolization, where sap is not vital water but becomes “memory of what has not been,” suggesting that the memory of absence possesses a nourishing force equal to or greater than that of living.
The contrast between the different elements is skillful and profoundly melancholic. The calendar, symbol of external and implacable measurement, acts as an agent of erosion (“chews”), but is forced into an almost passive role at the end, “caressing the forest’s shadow.” This suggests that time is not only destructive; it is also a silent witness.
The imaginary tree and the final forest represent the inherent resilience of being. Despite stolen days and hours without light, the life cycle (the growth of roots) continues to nourish itself precisely on that “absence that remains.” This absence is not a deficit, but a source of creative and historical energy.
The poetic conclusion, with the idea that new trees would remember never having been born if time returned what was lost, suggests a form of paradoxical immutability. The history of the forest is not made of full events, but of roots writing in the soil: their existence is a narrative act founded on the permanence of shadow and the silent power of latent memory. It is a text that elevates anticipation, potential, and remembrance to forms of true and lasting vitality.