golden root after “Taking The Hands” by Robert Bly
hand me what you will, and I will take
the thing and make it the
offering. it will become a wild flower from your hands’
valleys, perfect and blooming of
deep cream. its roots, your medicine. be the someone,
the one you
intend to be. love,
and know your
prairies are lush in tall grasses as far as you can see.
seclude yourself, and they,
the ones who do not know you are
in flight, will only know your delicate
singing like a bird in a cage…
aren’t you a bird in the prairie? go, and fly like a thousand tiny
birds.
Note: “The Taking Hands” won the 2022 Bring Back The Prairies Award by the League of
Minnesota Poets.
Golden Root Description
The golden root is a poetic form I created and named after its two sources of inspiration: Terrance Hayes’ golden shovel and Lucille Clifton’s poem “roots.” Similar to a golden shovel, the golden root uses every word of the source poem; yet, it is different in that the source poem encases the new poem. Specifically, the last word in each line (top to bottom) is the first half of the source poem, and the first word in each line (bottom to top) is the second half of the source poem. The source poem holds the new poem. The new poem lives within the source. The golden root serves as a conduit for the spirit of both poems.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 26, Issue 1.
Laura Rockhold is a poet and visual artist from Minnesota. She is the inventor of the golden root poetic form and 2022 winner of the Bring Back The Prairies Award and Southern MN Poets Society Award by the League of Minnesota Poets. Her work appears in Black Fox Literary Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, The Hopper, Yellow Arrow Journal, among other journals. Find her at www.laurarockhold.com.
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