Roots

A grounding sensation

A place to call home

To hang a hat

A place to grow

The dream we all have

Remains attached 

Even when uprooted

Aching to find fertile ground

Where to now?

Displaced wearily they wander

I have known this journey

Packed the bags, paid the toll

Searched the hills, followed the streams

To find a place, a home

Still the roof is rented

Denying the roots 

To community 

Decay seeps in

-Camille Delaquise

This poem appears in RISE, Camille’s second contemporary poetry collection. Roots explores the human longing for belonging and permanence — revealing how displacement, precarity and insecure shelter do not only unsettle the individual, but slowly erode the deeper roots of community itself.

This poem is available as a contemporary poetry print on textured recycled card.