On Wait Until It Grows Roots by Tarfia Faizullah
by Allison Hedge Coke
Hi. I’m Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, a poet born in Northwest Texas, here for Poets on the Plains. I’ve got some hot tea on the table and I’m here to offer a poem titled “Wait Until It Grows Roots” written by a poet raised in Midland, Tarfia Faizullah.
Tarfia Faizullah is the author of Seam from Southern Illinois University Press, 2014 and Registers of Illuminated Villages from Graywolf, 2018. Her work has appeared in venues in the US and abroad and has been translated into several languages. She is currently an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of North Texas.
Here's
Wait Until It Grows Roots
For Alex T.
a golden shovel after a line in ‘Gitanjali 73’ by Tagore
The plant trimming requires no
less than its water to be changed weekly. I
ask my friend who gifted it to me: when will
I be able to transfer it into soil? She has never
told me anything but the truth. I don’t shut
the window blinds now; my Plant-Friend loves the
sun too much. I’ve been leaving the doors
open too; the spirits flit more freely now. Yes, of
course I’m afraid of death, but no less so my
own life. A friend can bring you back to sweeter senses.
Used with Permission
First Run: Academy of American Poets
Credit Originally published 5/22/2025 on Academy of American Poets
(https://poets.org) https://poets.org/poem/wait-until-it-grows-roots
I love how Tarfia lays it all out at the beginning, takes us into the poem through portals she’s drawn for us to glide through. It’s invitational. There’s a dedication and an entry note allowing us to enter paying tribute from the beginning. To feel the conversation with another person (Alex T.) while also enjoying the tribute to another poet, maybe a few poets, in this case.
And the poem begins with trimming, as well. With a trimming that will root, will grow, will be abundant. Gifted from a friend who never lies to them and now the plant, trimming, here in water awaiting a root system to appear, is also becoming a friend, a plant-friend, one who needs light, sunshine, fresh air, and so the influence is allowing the speaker in the poem to be generous to the new friend and open all the windows regardless of what might be said of an open window allowing a spirit to pass through and her own mortality. Instead we have life and share life and live in truth completely open due to a kind gesture of sharing, or generosity, of trust.
I’m indebted to Tarfia Faizullah for such a generous, abundant, poem and happy to do my part and share this with you today.
Thank you for being with us for Poets on the Plains. I’m Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, wishing you many kind gestures ahead.
POETS ON THE PLAINS HOST
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke was born in Amarillo, lived/worked in seven High Plains states, and four more Great Plains states and provinces. She lives and works in California, came of age in North Carolina, and has also lived/worked in Hawai‘i, New Mexico, Michigan, New York, Tennessee and Georgia. She’s authored and edited 18 books including Look at This Blue: an assemblage poem and Burn (written at Marfa during the 2011 fires). Acknowledgements include the Thomas Wolfe Prize & Lecture, California Legacy Artist, the George Garrett Award, Fulbright Scholar, the First Jade Nurtured Sihui Female International Foreign Poetry Award, a U.S. Library of Congress Witter Bynner fellowship, and is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. She teaches for the University of California Riverside. Books: https://hedgecoke.com
FEATURED POET
Tarfia Faizullah, born in Brooklyn, New York, to Bangladeshi immigrants and raised in Texas, is the author of Seam (SIU 2014) and Registers of Illuminated Villages (Graywolf 2018). Her work has appeared in venues in the US and abroad and has been translated into several languages. The recipient of a Fulbright fellowship, three Pushcart prizes, and other honors, Faizullah presents work at institutions and organizations worldwide, and has been featured at the Liberation War Museum of Bangladesh, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, the Rubin Museum of Art, the Fulbright Conference, the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice, the Radcliffe Seminars, New York University, Barnard College, University of California Berkeley, the Poetry Foundation, the Clinton School of Public Service and elsewhere. She is currently an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of North Texas in Lubbock, Texas. https://www.tfaizullah.com/tarfia/www.tfaizullah.comtarfia.faizullah@gmail.com
