ENT:
When Spring unfolds the beechen leaf, and sap is in the bough;
When light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow;
When stride is long, and breath is deep, and keen the mountain-air,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is fair!

Groot's mother left when he was small. All the Ent Maids did. They had gone travelling, that's what his father said. The Ent Men stayed home and tended the saplings. It was before Groot had sprouted his first fruit, when he barely had a voice at all. His father told him that his mother would return; that the maids always came back. Their roots did not go as deep as the Ent Men, but they always returned home.

Some of the men went seeking the maids, and they never came back either.

ENTWIFE:
When Spring is come to garth and field, and corn is in the blade;
When blossom like a shining snow is on the orchard laid;
When shower and Sun upon the Earth with fragrance fill the air,
I'll linger here, and will not come, because my land is fair.

Then the bad times came. Whole forests destroyed. His father gone. He was alone in the wood and the world was wide. He kept silent and still whenever anyone walked by, pretending to be nothing more than dumb wood. If people saw him then they would burn him in the forges and he would die. Fire was the only thing he really feared. He didn't turn to hate as some of the other Ents did; he watched the coming and going of the smaller creatures with a fascination that was probably not good for him.

There were some brave and strong and true, but they were balanced with an equal number of those who were cruel and selfish. He watchesdthem kill each other and fight each other and give each other the clothes off their backs.

He didn't understand.

ENT:
When Summer lies upon the world, and in a noon of gold
Beneath the roof of sleeping leaves the dreams of trees unfold;
When woodland halls are green and cool, and wind is in the West,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is best!

The world had changed. He could feel it in the water. He could feel it in the Earth. He could smell it in the air. The forests were dwindling. He took escape where he could find it and ended up on a ship to the stars. He had always been enchanted by the sky, reaching his branches up towards it, learning the constellations and making some of his own. There was nothing left for him in the forest.

He was already flying when it occurred to him that maybe he could find the Ent Maids. Maybe this was where they had gone.

ENTWIFE:
When Summer warms the hanging fruit and burns the berry brown;
When straw is gold, and ear is white, and harvest comes to town;
When honey spills, and apple swells, though wind be in the West,
I'll linger here beneath the Sun, because my land is best!

He travelled and the universe was not kind to him. He could not take a translator, instead he had to learn and intuit and he is good at it, but he didn't have the words to respond. He could speak to his parents and to the other Ents with a thought and a song, but his mother had only just taught him to say his name before she left, and he could only say the first part of that. Ent names went on for weeks. His father was no teacher, too preoccupied with looking for his mother and with the fight.

He was treated as an oddity, a sideshow freak, and it took him a long time to understand that the people he meets could not always be trusted. He thought that since he was away from the bad place and the fires and the smoke that things would get better.

They didn't.

ENT:
When Winter comes, the winter wild that hill and wood shall slay;
When trees shall fall and starless night devour the sunless day;
When wind is in the deadly East, then in the bitter rain
I'll look for thee, and call to thee; I'll come to thee again!

He grew strong. He grew brave. He tried to hold on to the lessons his parents gave him. Then he met Rocket in a forest, running for his fur. Groot saw and sensed and felt how wrong the people chasing him were and he could smell chemicals and blood. He scooped the creature up and ran with him, his long strides taking them further.

"What the-?" the creature gasped and clung and Groot sat it on his shoulder the way his father had let other small things ride sometimes before the dark times.

ENTWIFE:
When Winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last;
When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past;
I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again:
Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain!

Groot had never seen a creature like Rocket before. He had seen many rodents, many marsupials, many primates, but nothing quite like Rocket. He ran through the lists of species in his head, trying to figure out where Rocket would fit.

"Ain't nothing like me but me," Rocket said, shaking his head when Groot told him. But the corner of Rocket's mouth turned up and Groot smiled in return.

They fit, the two of them. Alone in the galaxy, beaten, abused, but still fighting. The pair of them just worked somehow.

BOTH:
Together we will take the road that leads into the West,
And far away will find a land where both our hearts may rest

"I am Groot."

"Yeah, me too, buddy."