THE TREES
Here, the trees crowd closer.
Even in the dark one feels their presence.
In the stillest night they stir, and rustle
With the shuffling sound of retreating feet,
Mourners murmuring as they depart.
After the first gales, leaves lie across the grass
Like corpses, whispering death in ghostly voices,
And the wind keens through the empty branches,
Sharpening their edges against the bitter sky,
Cutting it into a grey shroud for dead summer.
Time slipped out of my hands
Time slipped out of my hand
Like sand.
Sifting out through an open fist
And the little left upon my palm
Was also soon gone
As if blown away by wind.
I watched with disbelieving eyes,
This strange, bewildering performance
As it passed the frenzied vigor of avalanche
Then slowly pulsed down to a mere trickling line
Farah Shams (1999)
Age
Time passes,
For some slowly.
For others_ running.
But in the end
All are same.
The bodies once young
As strong young trees
With tough branches,
Sturdy roots
Are reduced to mere skeletons
With bare thin limbs
And only a trickle of life
Flowing in the trunk
And then_ they're lonely.
With memories like gusts of wind
Blowing, echoing, rumbling
Through their bodies.
Forcing the stiff branches to creak
The hollow, empty body to groan
Till the nearly dead roots
Can no longer stand this onslaught
And then, they too uproot.
Farah Shams (1999)
Tree Tops
I watched the rising trees soar up, so up
Till I had to lie on ground
So I wouldn't fall when I looked up
And how I wished that I could too
Soar up, so up
Until those down below
Will have to lie down too.
But I was no tree, no plant with roots,
A plain mortal I was_ but yes_ I could!
I had two arms and legs that walked
So I climbed to the top
When atop the highest tree I stood
And looked below to my beginnings
I realized with sudden clarity
The wisdom of me being not a tree_
Then some one too with arms and legs
Would one day climb, and stand on me!
Farah Shams (2000)
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