“through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us. . ."

Saturday, November 6, 2010

The Tree





Above, the sky was a bright blue

Clouds, white, swum lazily

Sun shone bright

Breeze blew gentle.


Atop the tree, on the highest branch

A new leaf, slender and green

Soaked in the sun and danced in the air.

Other leaves wished how they could be

At the top, at the very top.


Humming happily to itself, the leaf,

Humming happily to itself

Nothing above me

But the empty, vast sky!


Trembling in glee, the flower buds

Blushed,

Dreaming of the bees

And the fruits they will bear.


The branches huddled,

Gravely discussing the season

The weather, how stronger and longer

They should grow;

They had their targets to meet.


The bark of the trunk, bit worried

Wondered how to tackle

The rise in termites

The whims of the woodpeckers

And the nuisance of squirrels

Nibbling the bark just for fun.


Beneath the soil

Matters had taken a worse turn

The roots were in confusion

And fear

Of the fickle rains

And the hard rocks deeper.


Birds flew, wind blew

Sun set and the moon rose.


In the dark

As the owl hooted

As bats erupted in and out

The tree sighed

For it knew

It was its last night.

******** Balachandran V, Trivandrum, 06-10-2010

13 comments:

  1. Beautiful....the emotions of each parts of the tree captured so well.

    I think you were a tree in your previous birth :-)

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  2. @Insig: :D
    I had many births - a sweeper in one, a dog in another, a tree in yet another - the best I remember was when I was a drop of dew...

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  3. That was beautiful.
    Need I say more?

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  4. nice photo
    beautiful poem to go with it

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  5. What an fascinating look at nature and how each unit felt about everything as a whole... Beautifully done..

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  6. Hello Pilgrim: I have visited before but cherish this post much. Good one!

    When you have a moment please come see me at NRIGirl

    ~ NRIGirl

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  7. thought provoking.
    nonhumans too feel, think, i guess.
    very interesting way of seeing life - you are a true environmentalist

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  8. I need to brush up my vocabulary to comment in one word on this beautiful thought Balan.

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  9. @Doc: Thanks,Doc! 'Beautiful' is a word, if you'd recollect, that we use in life,more than'ugly'!

    @sm: photo is courtesy the net; I usually remember to acknowledge, but this time I forgot and try as I might, could not trace it! :( Thanks for visiting!

    @Sandy: Thanks! Soon I will have to bring out a collection of poems exclusively on my mango tree! :)

    @NRIgirl: Thanks, and I will surely visit you soon.

    @KPJ: The whole poem is a metaphor for our life...

    @Anil: Coming from you, that's a real compliment!

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  10. Lovely. It was as if the tree, each part of it, was speaking for itself. Wonder if the tree really knows when its end is near! And man?

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  11. By any chance is the tree in reference one which got slaughtered due to urbanization? Well.. sounded so

    Just like Vayalar's 'Vriksham'

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  12. that poem was like this hot cup of tea on a cold winter morning!

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Leave a word, please!