This week I have worked on a poem that I revised today and wanted to share it. At some point in my life experiences, I have looked over my life and my legacy to see places where I do not understand my grandparents and my parents and their siblings’ decisions, yet I have to abide because it just isn’t my place (although I am affected by the outcome). Life is hard. Death isn’t the end. Decisions matter.
Bitter Roots
by Jennifer Greene-Sullivan
When opinions don’t matter
and dysfunction runs like water,
all you can do is suffer in silence
and wait till the dead man touches bottom.
Yet I wonder why
anyone would ever allow
it all to end up that way.
When thirsty, ancient roots rot,
because the well filled in with hate;
dry bones litter the barren womb,
and the sun glares at desolate fields.
Reflection – Bitter Roots
“See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”
— Hebrews 12:15 (NIV)
Bitter Roots grew from a place of quiet reckoning — that moment when you realize dysfunction doesn’t just appear overnight, it seeps down through generations like water finding its way through stone. It’s about the exhaustion of watching what was once life-giving turn sour, and the heartbreak of knowing that love can coexist with rot when healing is delayed.
The poem’s imagery — roots, wells, bones, and fields — came to me as symbols of what we inherit and what we allow to die. Roots speak of legacy, yet here they rot from thirst. The well, once a source of refreshment, has been filled in with hate — a deliberate burial of mercy. And the sun, which should nurture growth, now glares at desolation, forcing us to confront what’s been neglected.
In every family line, there’s both bloom and decay. This poem isn’t about despair but about truth — that sometimes God exposes the barrenness not to condemn it, but to invite restoration. Because only when the soil is broken can new life begin again.
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