By Najla Elmachtoub
Libra 𖤓 | Sagittarius ⏾ | Leo ↑
My arrival on earth is battle
Unanchored lone seed
Armed only with a memory:
Belonging is birthright
Roots perseverant penetrate
Indiscriminately through layers
Thickening with confidence
Welcome home
Stubborn soil now transformed
Lets overgrown neighbors
Feast on nutritious softness
My stalk ascends—
Darkness counterbalanced
Sun teaches me to receive
In gratitude I mirror it
Dressed in yellow
Absorbing its warmth
I reach towards it
Until I feel my roots tug back
From wholeness seeds emerge
Wisdom-filled parachutes You
must stay here
But they can fly
Sun says it’s time to go on
Until earth calls us back
To begin again
One day when I return,
A different version of me
Molded by the journey
Like weeds untamed
When I find this place
And nest in its softness
I may not remember
That I was here before
Welcome back
I pushed and persisted
And molded the earth
I healed it with the medicine
Of roots radiating memory
Soil made malleable
From persisting ancient truth
Will engulf me back home
And even though I left
Knowing I could land anywhere
That whoever roots
In my tended ground
Would not have to labor
To return, as I did
I didn’t know it would be me
I hope I remember
Najla is a Lebanese-American writer, engineering leader, and coach based in Berlin. Her work currently explores themes of ancestral healing, displacement, and cultural identity.
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