Evergreen trees, standing tall though a long slumber
Leaves looking for raindrops which they outnumber
Feeding a sea of green turns clouds bare
In our incubator, there’s always need for water and air
These cathedrals of the jungle are living proof
In the power of the silent, patiently raising rivulets of sap to the roof
Contrasting with the deluge from the skies
In its attempt to baptize
The testing ground for the fittest
Much in nature is a bequest
A crowning achievement, wish we’d all recognize
Would be so, if a seamless mind wasn’t balkanized
Hidden in a thicket of a divided mind, a lost tribe
Of thoughts that don’t subscribe
To conflict and isolation
Which are habit’s creation
Resembling rough bark, hiding delicate threads
Tearing compassion to shreds
The microscopic dance within
Reveling in perfection, does not care to begin
Searching for readymade reward
And making life drift toward
A mirage of happiness, like an evergreen tree in a desert
It can never grow in that dry dirt
The sun bears no fault
When it turns drops of water into crusting salt
Evergreen roots shun that taste
The tree it supports would be laid to waste
It’s hollowed out trunk cannot float on sand
Not the way nature had it planned
Dismembered branches then serve as crutches
As it recovers from deep scratches
Of nature’s axe, longing for cool waters of a river
That inflict famine with a deadly fever
Packing it into a floating coffin, of a sacrificed tree
Which plies harmlessly into the sea
When the tree meets clumps of seaweed in the sea
Both are helplessly tossed, neither can read
The blustering waves
That can send many to watery graves
The beacon of hope is that tree, but when it's hollowed out
A treasure chest of seeds cannot sprout
Endangered and lost, are people
Constructing an ever taller steeple
Forgetting the common foundation
There’s unbridled generosity, of privation
All a product of thought
Each offering a deeper plot
The canopy they create
Makes this make believe world seem great
With everything in an evergreen state
They ask, why does happiness hesitate and wait?
But it’s hidden, with a lost clan
Forced adrift without a plan
Lost in the jungle, that is that world
Into which it is ruthlessly hurled
There isn’t a path through that jungle
Left with no choice but to mingle
Amongst fearful thoughts, making their home in the unknown
Becoming the guide, it sits on a throne
Sculpted from the tree of happiness
We pay obeisance under duress
Forgetting we are no different from the evergreen tree
A heritage sold long ago for a paltry fee
- N. Seshadri
