Trees Know Their Seasons Poem by Ananta Madhavan

They know their seasons. Our trees began to sense
It was time to sprout buds, to summon up from roots
Their gushing zest for the fresh breath of spring;
Leaves emerge on bare branches, soft as baby hair.
We are illiterate in this cursive script.

The flowering treetops, pink, mauve and white,
Blazing tabebuia, bauhinia, frangipani, jacaranda,
Cassia, gulmohur, rain-tree, tulip-tree:
They hint at nameless hues beyond our palette.
The evening shadows they sieve before sundown
Seem softly tentative, but they have cast their shade.

This is a calligraphy I should have learnt
With tactile tenderness of palm and fingertips
To make the eyes exult and live again;
Like a toddler hugging a ball, perceiving new life.

We walk along the hues of fresh foliage,
Anxious that summer has arrived betimes,
Leaving us to forfend, endure or survive
The parching hope for sheets of slanted rain.


We are not trees which know their seasons
Deep within the fibre of their roots and leaves.

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Mysuru, India
March,2017