Conversation with a tree.

I dreamt of you the other day.

You were no different than you are now.

Slim, dumb and utterly boring.

You were full of life and green,

Yet stood alone like an age-old carcass.

You never talked, that most people did.

I had a few things to say, and I went to the people.

They heard me, but I knew they didn’t.

For they were too busy preaching their rehearsed lines.

I knew a bit of what they had to say,

So I didn’t listen to them either.

You were among them too,

Yet you didn’t scratch your ear, or prick on your nose,

Or appear like the all-knowing saint who foresaw doom.

But I kept my eyes on you, all the time.

For you were the only one listening.

Now that the dream is gone,

The words are now a fade, the memories past.

But your tall frame was never lost on me.

And today as I walk down the widowed path,

That was once a paved street,

I chance upon you again, tall and slender,

As you proudly display your leaves like wings of Icarus.

The tips of your roots, like eagle claws, cling on to the mud,

And your thick stem stands proudly amidst the tiny herbs.

Oh tree, the guardian of time,

Did you really listen to me the other day?

Or are you as dumb as you are mute?

Do you really feel the aching in my human heart?

The lost cravings, the treacherous demons,

Who have returned to haunt my soul?

As I suffered in the hands of the unfaithful,

The lost friends that have turned to foes.

Now as I sit at your feet,

I can feel your soft fingers

As they mend and brush my hair.

I can hear the soft sound of the wind

As it slides through your countless leaves.

Say nothing, my friend.

For here I can stay and tend to your nails,

And talk about the sadness, the pain,

The despair that I could never share.