Jyothy Sreedhar

A lonely tree

The season changes.

The tar of showers scratches into the clouds.

With my branches, I can touch the black.

With my leaves, I can sense the breeze.

I quiver.

My bird, I see you feeling it!

You flutter with your small wings.

I can’t see your face.

But I started imagining the time of parting.

The season had kept changing, always.

But you were safe in my arms.

You remember how I held you within, in the last rain?

When it was hot, my leaves gave you breeze.

The sun couldn’t trace you anytime.

That summer I dried out for you.

It did rain then… a sweet summer rain…

when we enjoyed the gentle touch of drops.

I splashed it with my leaves

You did it with your wings.

There was a freezing winter

when all my fingers packed you in warmth.

And I stretched myself in the moon

when you slept on my shoulder clutching me tight.

You had my fruits and my sweetness.

You had a nest in me,

a space in my each second.

I felt as if I lived for you,

and there was no one else for me to love.

My roots go deep and fingers high up.

I reached you to stars and moon

and the clear bluish sky.

You wondered when the stars smiled,

you told then that you touched the sky.

At my tip you stood in the moonlit sky.

In the wind you clinged to me and it did hurt.

I left my sleep to see you dream.

I imagined that you dreamt of me,

sang for me and danced for me

and wrote stories in my barks.

Now the dreams end.

Did it really?

Yes…

The season changes,

I see you ready to fly off.

I smell your life.

And see your first flight.

My bird, how I loved you!

I forgot how it is to be alone…

It is another life for me, a life of death.

You hear, you smile and you fly off.

Silence…

Silence…

Silence…

‘coz God had written in my sprout-

“The trees should be silent,

and the birds should sing.”