What the Old Tree Knows

 

What the Old Tree Knows 

The verse

The tree does not ask how long.
It does not count its rings.
It simply grows toward the light
and endures the weight of things.

Storms have bent it. Summers dried it.
Children carved their names.
And still it stands, And still it offers
shade to those who came.

I have stood beneath this tree
and asked it how it bears.
It dropped a leaf into my hands,
The oldest answer: it just cares

The vignette

The neem tree outside her building was older than anyone she knew. The watchman said it had been there since before the building was built. The building, he said, had been built around it.

She liked that. The idea that something could be so rooted that the world simply built itself around it, rather than removing it.

She sat under it sometimes in the evenings, when the city felt too loud. It asked nothing of her. It offered shade without conditions. It had survived decades of heat, monsoon, construction, neglect and many more.

She thought perhaps that was wisdom. Not the dramatic kind. Not the kind that speaks. Just the kind that stays.

What does the oldest thing around you teach you? I'd love to know.

"With words and warmth" - Vivekini Mata

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rain on a window I didn't open

Rain on a Window I didn't Open The verse It came without announcement the way longing always does, tapping at the glass with its small, insistent fuss. I watched it trace its fingers down the length of everything, turning the street into a mirror, making the ordinary sing. I thought about the latch. I thought about the cold. I thought about all the things I'd wanted and never told. The window stayed shut. The rain didn't mind. Some storms are only beautiful when watched from behind. The vignette She had always loved rain more from the inside. There was something dishonest about admitting that poets were supposed to stand in it, arms wide, face tilted up. But she preferred the glass between them. It started while she was making tea. A soft sound first, like someone scattering rice across the roof. Then heavier. Then the whole window was alive with it, each drop finding its own crooked way down. She pulled her chair closer without thinking. The tea went cold. She didn't n...
Read more

Before you become yourself

  Before you become yourself The verse There is a version of you that exists only in this hour  before the name, before the role, before the world reclaims its power. You are not yet the sum of tasks. You are not yet what others need. You are only warmth and wanting, a consciousness that's just been freed. Drink slowly. Stay a little longer inside this self without a shape. Identity is a costume, remember  And morning is before you drape. The vignette There is a philosopher, I forget which one, who said that the self is not a thing we have but a thing we perform. I think about that most mornings, usually around the second sip. Before I open my laptop, before I answer to any name, there is a brief window where I am nobody in particular. Just a body with a warm cup, watching the light change. It is the only time of day I feel completely honest. I've started to think of it as practice, not for productivity or mindfulness, but for remembering that underneath all the performin...
Read more

A beginning and an Invitation

  Welcome to Verses & Vignettes Where words find their shape, one poem, one moment at a time. Some stories are too full for a single line. Some feelings are too fleeting for a novel. This blog lives in that in-between space  where verses hold the weight of the world and vignettes capture what the camera misses. Hello, and welcome. I'm so glad you found your way here. This is a space I've been quietly dreaming about, a corner of the internet dedicated to poetry, short prose, and the small, beautiful fragments of everyday life that are worth pausing over. Verses  because some truths only make sense in rhythm. You'll find poems here about nature, longing, quiet mornings, and the emotions we don't have names for yet. Vignettes because life doesn't always need a plot. A grandmother's kitchen. A train ride at dusk. A conversation overheard in a café. Small scenes, fully felt. Whether you're here to read, to feel something, or just to slow down for a few m...
Read more