Nature The Teacher: Lessons From Tree And River Poem by Varanasi Ramabrahmam

Tree:

Oh! The leaves talk with me

And make green my heart

Full of peace, love and youthfulness

Inspiring me, my near and dear!


Oh! The trunk speaks with me

Makes me strong and erect

In life to follow

Path truthful and straight


The branches instruct me

To spread into space around

To receive light of knowledge

From all directions and ways


The flowers full of honey moving rhythmic in the breeze

And ask my heart to be soft, sweet and move for fellow-beings;

Teach me to be soft, pleasant to look and scattering fragrance

And transform into fruit

Ripening, carrying seeds for reproduction


Fruits yellow gently tell me

To become mature and enlightened

With ripened mind and spread

Enlightenment, delight, peace, bliss, love and silence

The roots ask me to protrude deep into the knowledge

And get nourished and wetness for sustenance,

Remain lively and live full of life the life


The tree as a whole tells me

To be caring and useful

To fellow beings using all my

Assets and actions for the welfare of the life and the living



River:

River teaches me

How to advance from

Humble beginnings

To become more and large


Acquire energy to

Pass through ups and downs

To produce streams and falls;


Be swifter with current

Giving power to one and all

From steep falls;


Then become gentle flow in plains;

When checked by hurdles and obstacles

Ready to flow through channels

Giving sustenance to crops, and humans

And quench the thirsts;


Then meander to join the

Sea of Divinity dissolving identity in the Union

In the final moments