TREE-TRUE
The staccato rhythm
washed upon dazed sleep – chop chop chop.
The tree wanted to shout – Stop!
It was hushed by more blows.
Down dropped the mangoes
on the prickly brown leaves
faking a red-carpet.
The roving axe came near my windows.
The morning bled white and green
with shiny water apples,
feasted upon now only by crows.
The mynahs, bulbuls, koyels stayed away.
Only the small woodpecker worked lustily,
stunned at the gaping, bare boughs.
Loss is a green canopy
that shaded me from prying eyes.
Loss is a tree,
a fairy-whisperer, soothing me to sleep,
cut down to size.