“All this has been driven largely by the sinking of roots.”—Thomas Halliday, Otherlands
A rhizosphere, or “world of roots,”*
underlies lives that rising raise
their arms toward a star that shoots
or rains down rays on which to graze.
The thralls of replicating life
so stuff themselves with solar meat,
and learn to thrust in mutual strife,
until, grown old in self-defeat,
their flesh is food that others eat,
and fuel a growing human swarm
will burn in winter to keep warm.
Those also have a rhizosphere,
although it’s what they have to fear,
with roots that murder growing near.
*Thomas Halliday, Otherlands: A Journey through Earth’s Extinct Worlds (New York: Random House, 2023), on the Carboniferous era, 309 million years ago, p. 189.
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