Kaveesha Ruwindi | + Follow Poet |
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Grandfather Tree

I was walking down the neighbourhood,
reminiscing how it all
used to be where we made believe
that we were nymphs in a wood,
except the once moist earth was parched,
and the once white air was brown...
and footpaths and landmass
were suddenly under a filter of grey...

Here I stop by this grandfather tree,
one in my eyes would be older than me.
But when I touched the bark
and the lowest leaf,
it whispered, "Speak, child of Eve,
now that I'm awake from my sleep."

I walked backwards,
scratching and tilting my head,
wondering what was messed with my senses;
had climate change really gotten into my head?
Now although I am shocked,
and my mind can't think so fast,
my tongue does the work for me:
"How have you lived this long?" it asks. 

A wind blows, and my eyes take up,
imagining him stretching the rusty spine of a trunk.
He then speaks, in the gruff and cranky voice:
"You humans do whatever you want,
kill what you see with your eyes, 
and spare what they think would fit their design best."

My eyes wander, to the settlements gray,
and remembered, the green kingdom where we'd played.
"Do you ever miss them?" I wish I hadn't asked,
but there is no way of turning time, and I continue to ask:
"The others of your kind, the ones that fell,
were they family, or friends at best?"

The grandfather shuddered, cold and angry,
I could feel his thoughts, how he wished
that I'd not reminded of what sored him. 
"But what good would it do to think of the dead all day?"
He adds, "Isn't that what your mother always says?
Best ask her yourself, I'm sure my answer would be same;
for though you'd branched out early, we share one ancient family name.
But for now leave me be, your kind has hurt me enough,
to be sworn enemies, still, I'd rather sleep it through."

I turn around annoyed, wandering what tricks my fancies play,
then I stop so suddenly, with one last question to say:
"How do you know me?" I ask, not expecting replies,
but he says in return: "I used to watch you as a child,
"And in your early days I'd hold you when your limbs weren't so ripe,
I'd watched you walk, then I was worried,
when my own limbs tripped yours.
I'd thought since that misplaced root, that you'd never come back.
But now that I've talked to you, I feel
weirdly warm and comforted to sleep."

Copyright © Kaveesha Ruwindi | Year Posted 2023

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