Buddha Trees Poem by Francisco R. Albano

How do a mango tree and a bodhi tree
Become One?
The story is told
Of a typhoon venting fury on the City,
Felling an ancient mango tree
In a convent garden.
When the time came to chop thing into
Firewood and décor (what is deadwood for?)
The nuns discovered a strange plant
Growing in a hollow of the fallen
Giant: an orphan in a cradle. Slowly
Science defined a bodhi sapling,
Lineage unknown to scriptures and tradition.
The nuns trimmed the wood vase to free form
And transformed the sapling into
A bonsai of wonder.
But where is the event?
The word is of origins and destinies.
The silence is of enlightenment born
Of violence (even in a convent gardens) .
The scent is of mangoes exuded by bodhi.
And the trees: they are and we are not
In between.