rooted tree

A tree with a distinguished vertex called its root. Having specified a root, we may orient the tree's edges towards the root. This is useful, for instance to record a Lisp s-expression, or the sequence of function calls in an execution of a computer program.

Note that trees grow from the top of the page downwards. The root is up (but the tree is not uprooted). God got this one wrong in the Real World™.

In a dream of composite imagery stands
the world ready to fall and ease
Over itself in wicker folds
So beware.

Beware your kitchen tables and nylon homes
They slink across the earth and and towards the sea
and plead to roam and sink
beneath the sand.

Under the yellow rust of dead roots
Sing your creaking wheels and veils
Trampled dry and lean
Like metal sheets.

Bend and burning with the tide