Plant -Life-Stories Poem by Priya Sarukkai Chabria

But he will never know, this man,
who has stood by me, not forest-like through thick
and thin but in the in-betweens,
like a lonely tree on a bald hill
that provides shade to wanderers
to unpack their lunch and eat and sleep:
Sustenance on their journeys.


But he will never know, this man,
how he has tilled
the field of my longings,
scattering seeds that grow wild,
rich my secret valleys. But


will he ever see the warm harvest
of blessed years, of storm-blown
ripening grain and husk that fall


with ease, with gentleness
on barren hills from which a lone
tree grows again, tap root seeking
the stream underground, my life and his?


Earth on earth, my back a hill,
I open my arms to gather its spring
that is our love:
It leaps fresh and clear.