Kadambs
When I see them so close from my terrace,
In sway, to and forth in the evening breeze,
Their brown leaves falling off, as if from grace,
With every little burst of monsoon squeeze,
Those yellowed waiting to fall in careless ease,
I wonder if man should learn from trees:
Their endless patience, their resigned frisson
To life, bowing to the will of Nature,
In tune with time, the mood of every season,
Standing tall still triumphant in stature;
Man but admiring from distance, and cool,
Remains the student of a condescending school.
There's something so peculiar of rains so rife,
Which do things strange to me, to trees alike;
It's not water, an elixir of life,
(Trees draw water through roots, through leaves from air,
(And plants can be watered in pots and pans.)
When I water my potted plants they smile,
My worry is o'er-watering,
Having seen them suffer a decayed death,
Yet, I've seen weeds growing on sheer self-will,
Rains stretching their green smile an extra mile;
So, trees take copious rains in their stride,
And none the worse seem for this wet largesse.
And in a few days I see what rains do:
Lo, Kadamb1 has come to a fruity spell,
Underneath every leaf there hangs a fruit
Flowering, many still too small to see,
Some, ahead of race, showing off their plume,
A yellowish orange coat of young buds,
Like furs of a tennis ball, blossoming
All around the fruit's glistening surface.
There follows soon a swarm of honey bees,
A variety of sundry butterflies,
Feasting in a rainless spell in undisturbed ease,
And a feast no less to my un-tired eyes;
But good seldom lasts long, a fact of life,
Kadamb1 gets no grace from Nature's wise rule.
The orange furs ripen soon to acquire
A darkling brown shade to fall on the ground
Below, in a smooth bed spread all around,
Much like Parijaat flowers from heaven,
Alas, no match to their heady fragrance;
The buds die buds, not blossoming into flowers.
The bald fruit, no more a tennis ball now,
Soon ripens to attract Simian brigades,
Making me wonder, why humans avoid
Them at all, wonderful in look no less
Than are palatable if nothing else.
But I know, none of ancient Indic lore
Talk of Krishna e'er cherishing this fruit,
Who spent years of early childhood and youth
Cavorting with maids, playing Bansi flute
Under this tree, enchanting all alike.
The tree sheds leaves, growing new through the year,
Not in autumn alone, a wiser thing
To do in my ill-informed wisdom though;
Come spring and ‘tis green-bedecked youthful bride,
Inviting that ace singer there to hide,
Recalling his mate from some unknown far,
The pancham note, the fifth, constant remains,
His heaving heart singing e'er more intense;
I often read a note of frustration,
His call fails when to get a counter call,
But most city birds, now a thinning lot,
Should better know, not just bipeds alone,
They too aught pay the price of time's progress.
A few more birds come and go through the day,
But few are more regular than this night's
Sole resident hanging there upside down,
The bat, the black guest of the darkling night,
Who chooses to vacate before dawn's light.
Me here, in life's grey evening solitude,
Sitting in a corner of my terrace,
Sipping tea of satisfaction, thinking
Of life that had been— a much trodden wood,
Of chunks of chafing course of little grace,
When you day-dream of acquiring a twain of wing,
And then mind coming back to Kadamb1 tree:
All buds need not blossom to be flower—
As every monsoon cloud may not shower—
To fall off ere time, muddy mire to be;
But every single bee, each butterfly,
Makes every life still worth living well nigh.
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1.Kadamba: Encephellous Kadambas. The trees are of two
main varieties found in India, one native,
another a close cousin.
Set largely in blank verse in iambic pentametre, a few lines
in hexametre. But as the narrative part of the poem
becomes reflective, as in the first and the last stanzas, the
lines acquire rhymes and are no more blank.
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- Reflections | 04.09.12 |
poem by Aniruddha Pathak
Added by Poetry Lover
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