Conversation With Trees Poem by Dileep Jhaveri

Trees converse with each other

One tree bends a branch trembling with nascent leaflets to other

The other steadily holds up a nest

One shows green lichen spreading on its brown bark

Other has caterpillars crawling over its trunk

One turns its foliage from the other to share sunlight

Under the earth the other tugs its roots to where dampness is

Trees write also, on the sheets of winds

One has to know the script of fragrances

and dew, raindrops and snow as well

They paint on moonbeams and lake waters

As a child how often you kept awake

and left for solitary wanderings!

True, the squirrels do not scurry over our tables

nor do the birds perch on the chairs

But we rejoice making wooden toys

of birds flapping their stringed wings

Dig up clumsily carved bull-carts from ancient ruins

We have played with boats, cars, trains and aeroplanes of wood

And of course, the wooden soldiers with wooden swords

And prayed to saints fashioned from logs

and cut a cross from a tree

And now we beg forgiveness from this paper