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O Tree, Keep Counting the Days

Amitava Mukherjee

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O Tree—
Century on echoing century,
when your leaves ignite their dance,
a frenzied rhythm on the wind's taut drum,
begin to count the days,
for Death has set its unflinching clock.

From your breast, the chariot of Karna
was hewn, for the clash with Arjuna;
and from your grain, the very bow and arrow
Arjuna bent, to let the arrow fly
and slay the warrior Karna.

That humble guitar,
that gave Joan Baez her resonant
voice of sorrow, her silvered fame—
its soul was strung from your fiber.

And in the hush of dining rooms,
where meals are served on polished tables,
I witness your many incarnations:
your silence planed smooth,
your vast body divided, refined
into shapes that sate the human eye.

The saw’s soft hum,
a tender, murderous gesture of love—
it measures you,
severs your long memory,
and dresses you for another life.

The words that clot
upon the uvula,
before they become rows of ordered type,
before language can finally rise
and speak your truest name,
they perish in the mouth—
like breath frozen
on the very edge of utterance.

Your leaves are shadows,
drifting into the slow tide of human days,
coming and going from view,
or walking silently with us on the road.

O Tree,
in the silver glare of sun,
or the velvet dark of the new moon,
in the wind’s counsel from all directions,
I seek a strange solace,
gathered round this round table of your being.

Century on echoing century,
beyond the rows of guarded wood,
I can recall no other sight.
I can no longer hold the memory
of your simple standing,
of your own essential self.

Century on echoing century,
as your leaves begin their final dance
on the wind’s quickening drum—

O Tree,
start counting the days to your own death.
You will be nothing more than rows and rows of guarded, 
waiting corpses.

1/4/2025
Amitava Mukherjee
Copyright@ Amitava Mukherjee