arborescent

at the end of his life

my father became an arborescent
sapiens ;

like growths that grow on old things-

he grew a little, defying gravity and

other winds

memory takes me to a Tripuri Temple-

( a century old turtle, his reptilian eyes

and his mossy shell the evidence of 

a time gone by-

I fed him with my own hand, still

afraid at the lack of his 

human intelligence )

or to a time when Sinbad’s whale

( grew an island on his back in

that Arabian story- 

who still hibernates in a shallow sea

somewhere in that draped imagination ) 

everyone who is wise must be like a tree,
Aunt Yashodhara who has an ancient history
of loving otherworldly men often said so

( and calm is their presence -

 their actions like branches

shooting for the abiding skies above
holding everything, from paper kites to songbirds

and yellow leaves of Autumn)

do you remember the beginning of 

the Cambrian 

when life must have exploded within 

the early oceanic amphitheatres-

such grand experiments beneath 

the leagues of unforgiving oceans,

and in that darkness

away from the faint sun 

still lived things- albeit locked in the
machinations of this life 

Like my father at old age.