Plantain
Plantain suckers dib the dirt
and tip the crumbled sod.
Their questing noses, moistly new,
run at independence
with pushy pokes.
Each last, older inch
runs back and back and back along
the plantain’s gnarly rootline,
purpose-pliant, tougher, cargoed,
greyhaired, benign, first-stock.
About this poem
This poem, representing Antigua and Barbuda, is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.
