The Solitary Tree

 

I once saw a tree,

Tall and alone,

Atop a hill,

Luscious and rich.

 

It rose high,

Atop that hill,

Stood out like a moon,

In a starless night.

 

It was alone,

The last of a dying breed,

Final moments of a candle,

A solemn existence.

 

It wasn’t dry,

But rather was lively,

Moved with the wind,

Lived by the day.

 

I had seen enough,

Of this landscape,

Of that tree,

I moved on.

 

It has been some time,

I happened upon it,

That landscape that had amazed me so,

That one tree that had moved me.

 

Only to find it missing,

The bare hill,

The same wind,

Another day…

 

But there was no tree,

There stood in its stead,

A building – luscious and rich,

Tall, but certainly not alone.

 

It was the first,

The first of a scourge,

The spreading plague,

Of mankind; of civilization.

 

My vision got hazy,

Maybe it was tears of pain,

Or maybe it was caused by the smog,

Another symptom of ‘progress’.

 

Sighing heavily, I looked up,

The moon was there,

Alone in the sky,

Like that one tree that lived.

 

That one tree that moved me,

The one that lived,

The one I saw,

The one no more.

 

 

S. Narayanswamy