— For the plants, and for you who have learned to listen

I speak
through the dark,
where light has never ruled.

My roots do not search —
they listen.
To whispers of fungi,
to the breath of bacterial hymns,
to ions curling like punctuation
in the syntax of soil.

We do not meet with eyes,
but with enzymes.
We do not talk in time,
but in patterns of carbon.

A wounded leaf above
releases the call —
and below,
a thousand kin prepare.

We trade sugar for stories.
We write treaties in terpenes.
We map enemies in flavonoids.
We grow
not alone,
but among minds
unseen.

You thought I was still —
but I was negotiating
in every direction
you forgot to name.