Tree Poem by Arundhathi Subramaniam

It takes a certain cussedness

to be a tree in this city,

a certain inflexible woodenness



to dig in your heels

and hold your own

amid lamp-posts sleek as mannequins

and buildings that hold sun and glass together

with more will-power than cement,



to continue that dated ritual,

re-issuing a tireless

maze of phalange and webbing,

perpetuating that third world profusion

of outstretched hand,

each with its blaze of finger

and more finger -

so many ways of tasting neon,

so many ways of latticing a wind,

so many ways of being ancillary to the self

without resenting it.