Oh you shaggy-headed banyan tree standing on the bank of the pond, have you forgotten the little child, like the birds that have nested in your branches and left you?
The women would come to fill their jars in the pond, and your huge black shadow would wriggle on the water like sleep struggling to wake up.
The ducks swam by the weedy border above their shadows.
He sat near the window and wondered at the tangle of you roots that fell downwards.
He longed to be the wind and blow through your rustling branches to be your shadow with the day on water to be a boat and poach on your top most twig.
January, 2025
