Roots Remember
Accra, Ghana
2025, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
I walk…
Where my grandmother once planted yams.
Barefoot.
On soil that still hums her name like a lullaby in the wind.
She didn’t need science to tell her the land was alive
She felt it,
in her palms,
in her breath,
in the rhythm of sun and shadow.
She said,
The earth keeps our secrets.
The trees? They whisper back.
The roots?
They remember
So I dig my fingers into the dirt
Not just to grow,
but to connect.
To heal.
To remember where I come from.
Because nature…
She’s not just a view,
She’s a mirror.
She shows me what still lives inside.
The river?
It knows me.
Knows how to hold sorrow
and still keep flowing.
That’s resilience.
I walk these paths for peace,
for pulse,
for presence.
Because when the world feels heavy
Screens buzzing, cities rushing
I find my sanity in the shade.
I find my clarity in the wind.
And every time I breathe deeply beneath the open sky,
I know:
Healthy earth, healthy me.
They’re not separate.
They never were.
So I speak for the soil,
Sing with the streams,
Stand with the roots.
Because to care for the land
Is to care for us all.
But the city
She speaks in static,
She moves fast, too fast.
I chase deadlines instead of sunsets,
Scroll screens instead of skies,
Forget the names of trees
that once whispered my own.
And yet
When I step back,
Peel myself away from the noise,
Find myself beneath an old baobab’s shade,
I hear my grandmother’s lullaby
woven in the wind.
The earth never stopped calling.
I was just too busy to listen.
The city presses in
Concrete veins pulse with horns and headlights,
Towering glass reflects faces lost in urgency.
The air tastes like metal,
Like engines humming at the throat of the sky.
I move fast,
Step in sync with flashing crosswalks,
Forget the feeling of earth beneath my soles.
But the forest waits
Breathes with the patience of ancient roots.
Leaves murmur secrets in the hush of evening,
Sunlight drips through branches like honey.
The river does not rush,
It hums low, steady, sure.
It knows time,
Not as something spent,
But something held.
Reflection
Reflection
I came up with the idea for "Roots Remember" through my personal experiences growing up in Ghana and listening to my grandfather's stories about the land. His wisdom and connection to nature inspired me to reflect on the importance of respecting and caring for the earth. Urbanization and disconnection from nature are pressing issues, and I wanted to start a conversation about our responsibility to preserve the natural world. Through exploring the Contest theme, Connections to Nature Looking Inside, Going Outside, I learned about the interconnectedness of human well-being and the natural world. My message to listeners is that nature is not just a backdrop for human life, but a mirror that reflects our inner selves and a source of healing and wisdom. I hope "Roots Remember" resonates with listeners and encourages them to prioritize the well-being of our planet. By sharing my work, I aim to contribute to a larger conversation about the importance of nature in our lives and our collective responsibility to care for it.