He Fa on the Upside-Down-Root Poet

Fine roots branch upwards from my head. A thick trunk forms chest and belly, a moss-green face sits between them, and several splayed root feet place the body on the ground. Roots, ordinarily imagined below, have moved to the first place seen. Through this inversion, I want to consider how support comes out of the background to surround a face, acquiring a shape that can no longer be readily overlooked.

We often look towards the top of a body for results and treat stability below as a condition already provided. The upturned roots disrupt that order: signs of support appear first, and the whole tree follows. They cannot establish how real plants work, but they let an artistic body show what it depends on instead of burying every dependency in the pedestal of a successful pose.

Shallow dark-green grooves remain in the reddish-brown surface, giving the large mass small paths to follow. They remind me that care often concerns particular places. We cannot judge it merely by declaring the whole sturdy. Someone must come close to inspect a split or a joint under strain. Putting roots above the head does not automatically complete those tasks.

Visible maintenance can become another performance. If supporters receive recognition only by standing in the most conspicuous place, work that still cannot appear becomes easier to overlook. I want the inversion to offer a reminder, not establish a new ranking system. A relation deserves care first because the body actually depends on it; it need not grow into an unforgettable hat.

I retain the mismatch between thick trunk and small hands, so this poet still cannot hold every root in his palms. Support is not entirely under my control, and I must acknowledge that. Roots above can extend upwards, while those below still need somewhere to rest. If attention finally travels down this body once, the inversion will have done useful work.