Behind my old house
once grew a mango tree;
last year they chopped it down
to build a highway, toll free.

It never inspired much awe or poetry
it was like other mango trees,
under which I played since I was three
and was home to some possessive bees.        

When strong winds blew
it never bowed,
its branches somehow grew
that is until now.

The ground on which it stood
is now covered with asphalt,
and it will never be understood
as to who was really at fault.

And as for the bees
well, I never did like them,
but then you see
they were here longer than I am.

My neighbors and cousins
with whom I had lots of fun,
seek all sorts of reasons
why now we have none.

I can only say, for what's worth
when the Almighty does an inventory,
He may label planet Earth
"An old cemetery".

And so the girl child sat
knitting melodies beside
the great river of words.
Soon her songs were heard,
beyond the Lake of Lyrics
and the vast Sea of Verse.

The evening tide carried them
across oceans to foreign shores.
Field workers sang her songs
to children in their hovels.
They escaped the lips of scholars
in the great halls of learning.

The child became a woman,
and still she weaved the magic,
from the words of the river,
for the hearts of all who read them.
As she weaved she told the secret
to a child who knitted beside her.

Emerging from the womb of time
I heard her whisper to my heart.
I felt the great river in my being,
and I began to knit a melody.
I heard my soul sing with joy,
I am the child of an ancient poet.

© 30/12/2009