Scott Edward Anderson's Poetry Blog

To close National Poetry Month for 2025, I’d like to share a poem I wrote in the tradition of occasional poetry—a form composed to mark a specific moment or honor a particular request. I was honored when my wife Samantha and her co-author Rimi Chakraborty invited me to contribute a poem to their powerful book, Beyond Resilience to Rootsilience. Our friendship with Rimi and her husband João Ferreira began in the Azores several years ago, and since then, I’ve watched with admiration as she and Samantha have brought this work to life and have helped many women leaders deal with burnout, get more grounded, and improve their physical and mental health.

Beyond Resilience to Rootsilience offers a vital reimagining of what it means to lead and live well, especially for women navigating the demands of leadership and life. It speaks to that moment when our bodies tell us we’ve gone too far and how they ask us to listen—and to root. Samantha and Rimi coined the word “rootsilience” (rhyming with resilience) because creating lasting change requires a shift not just in mindset but in language itself. The idea is to be like a tree that is rooted in the ground while it sways in the wind and weather rather than “snapping back” in the face of stress.

Inspired by this vision, my poem draws on the metaphor of trees and the quiet strength found in their networks of connection, adaptation, and mutual support—lessons nature teaches us, if we are willing to listen. Here is my poem, “On Roots and Resilience”:

“On Roots and Resilience”

Trees are not silent sentinels in the forest,

we just can’t hear their communication,

and don’t understand their language.

If we could learn to listen, we might absorb

strength from their interdependence,

their interconnected web in the soil,

tangled up in mycorrhiza,

water and minerals coursing from fungus to roots,

sugars from leaves to fungi,

roots below mirroring branches above,

always ready in their capacity to change,

to adapt, to learn from experience,

to share wisdom and strength

in a mutualistic relationship.

Be like the tree in the forest,

neither silent nor alone,

and not only resilient,

but swaying with the stresses,

and standing in the calm,

connecting your whole self

and your relationship with others,

to your own interdependent web.

Let your interconnected roots

provide your true strength,

from canopy to leaf, branch to trunk, root to rhizome.

— Scott Edward Anderson

You can learn more about Samantha and Rimi’s book here: rootsilience