The Tree Is A Poem | Sagari Chhabra

The tree is a poem

the earth writes to the sky;

shrieking parrots streak green

her canopy, so high;

nibbling her fruit,

leaving a soft, curvature impress,

the tree is a giving, sweeping Empress.

 

The tree is a poem with several stanzas;

it’s home to squirrels chasing their tails

in exquisite extravaganza.

Below lives a snail,

that leaves a silvery trail

as he eats her decaying leaves

in minute trellised detail.

A gecko is housed in a hole

besides the almost unseen

humble, soil microbe;

which nourishes the ground

upon which reside,

a colony of ants, that preside,

over an underground maze,

complete with elaborate rooms,

balconies and foyers;

leaving the engineers amazed

at the construction,

without any sign of destruction.

Painstakingly each ant

lifts every particle of soil,

dealing with every single foil,

with perseverant commitment;

the tree is witness to the

struggle of all living beings

within the universal system.

 

Along would come a peacock

who from his parched, turquoise-blue throat,

would let out a cry,

startling all to note;

his thirst was not his alone;

his cry was for all living beings

in the kingdom of earth’s throne.

 

The tree wrote a poem to the sky;

flocks of starlings and sparrows

would sing in a feathered choir,

encircling the horizon’s celestial air;

returning to her trellised branches

to which they were heir.

 

The tree was a lyric;

she gave shelter to many a cynic;

the businessman who believed in only money,

the hive of bees that spun molten honey;

to the jilted lover,

the abandoned woman,

the thirsty traveler,

the tired salesman,

the newly-weds;

the derelict, the forlorn,

no one was shorn of her love,

she was quite simply above;

you could lie down and rest,

or lean against her, two abreast.

The solitary could finger

her fresh, fine green filigree,

and feel uplifted from the urban debris.

 

O why did they fell my beloved tree

why did they take the poetry out of me!

Sagari Chhabra
22 November ’24