Tree Poem by Arundhathi Subramaniam

It takes a certain cussedness
to be a tree in this city,
a certain inflexible woodenness

to dig in your heels
and hold your own
amid lamp-posts sleek as mannequins
and buildings that hold sun and glass together
with more will-power than cement,

to continue that dated ritual,
re-issuing a tireless
maze of phalange and webbing,
perpetuating that third world profusion
of outstretched hand,
each with its blaze of finger
and more finger -
so many ways of tasting neon,
so many ways of latticing a wind,
so many ways of being ancillary to the self
without resenting it.