Trees, A School Of Life - Ii Poem by Aniruddha Pathak

Kadamba1 sheds leaves, grows new all thru the year,
Not in autumn alone, a wiser thing
To do, in my lay man's plain reckoning;
But spring's now here, a bedecked youthful bride,
Inviting birds like cuckoo on the hide,
Calling a mate from an unknown far place,
A constant vigorous fifth note it calls,
As heaving heart sings ever more intense,
And oft I feel her frustration as well,
The call fails when to get a counter call,
And a sad thought comes: how long will it last,
Trees fall when all around and birds when flee.

Sure, fewer birds we see each passing year,
Some nest amidst bricks, wooden niches, nooks,
I wonder, what must have made doves leave trees,
When others, wary of men adjust still,
Like this night watchman hanging upside down—
Call it a bat that bats well in dark night,
And choosing to retire ere dawn is bright.
I also see many a visitor—
Birds nesting under its rich canopy,
Due his curious chin, man has long left tress,
Lost his love of nature, invited strife,
But good seldom lasts long— a fact of life.

And I, in life's grey eve of solitude,
Sitting in a corner of my terrace,
Sipping tea, showing a satisfied face,
Thinking of life in too trodden a wood,
Of little grace amidst coarse chafing,
A reverie taking off on a wing;
Yet, mind keeps returning to Kadamb1 tree:
Buds sprout, may not blossom into flower—
As every monsoon cloud may not shower—
To fall off ere its time, top soil to be;
Nor every single bee and butterfly
O would grow wings to soar free unto sky.

‘That tree's long hacked to its premature death
‘Never to regain breath despite your faith,
‘It's time you face fact of reality,
‘Get up now, it's enough of reverie',
I hear the voice of my down-to-earth wife,
And return home to truth of mundane life.
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Kadamba1: Encephellous Kadambus, the trees are of two main varieties found in India, one native, the other a close cousin. Set largely in blank verse in iambic penta-metre. But as the narrative part of the poem becomes reflective, as in the first and the last two stanzas, the lines acquire rhymes and no more are blank.
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Reflections | 05.09.12 |
Topic: tree, life, school