Why do roots stay alive long after the tree is gone? When the little one asked this to me, I was busy clawing and pulling and hacking at an old stump in the garden. I looked around and sighed. All the hard weeds all around the garden were fathered by this one tree. Wherever its roots went, it spawned stories that entrenched itself like fables and myths. Looking back, I think it would have been easier living with her Than dying everyday, fighting her memories Spawning all over Like weeds in an eternally damaged garden.