As Versatile As A Bamboo Shoot Poem by Suzanne Hayasaki

I am bamboo!
Hollow, jointed, flexible, fast-growing.
Chop me down with your machete and I grow back by the end of the day.
Dig me up for dinner and I will not even notice,
You have simply snipped off a toenail.
“I” am the whole grove.

Why do I exist in such profusion?
Because I serve so many purposes.
We must all serve all.
I just make it my trademark.

Cut off one of my slender shoots
And make a flute.
Don’t worry.
You won’t hurt me.

In this it is my hollowness that serves.
It is your song I sound.
It is in your hands, with your mouth on mine, that I sing.
Is it not divine?

Use some of my sturdier stems as spokes for a wheel.
In this it is my flexibility that serves.
I will absorb some of the shock as you travel down the road of life.
Do I not ease your pain?

Take my greenest, softest shoots and cut them into the thinnest of strips.
Then weave them into mats.
As you sleep upon me, am I not sweet to the smell, reassuring to the touch.
Mother Nature nesting you at her breast?
And when your creativity wells up inside you,
On the balmiest of days,
Craft me into anything you can imagine:
A helicopter, the frame of a kite...
And watch me fly.
All for you.

My love.