I went for a run.
The morning was clean,
like an inbox after rage-quitting your job.
There on the pavement –
a graveyard of stumps,
neatly filed like bureaucratic teeth.
City-approved silence.
The rings on the trunk:
a resume of endurance.
Centuries,
reduced to coasters for commuter shoes.
Someone says,
“Look how convenient!”
A place to sit.
To scroll.
To scroll and sip.
To scroll and sip and complain about time.
The tree, long dead,
becomes urban furniture.
A stump for every genre:
the philosopher,
the barista,
the breakup crier,
the freelance strategist
looking for signal and God.
Soon a cafe grows like moss –
Root & Roast or
Stump & Sip –
all reclaimed wood and reclaimed conversation.
People gather.
They talk about sustainability
on single-use cups.
They tweet photos
captioned “Nature Heals.”
The wi-fi password is treefellforus.
Someone sketches poetry
on a napkin
about the poetry
of trees
that no longer need leaves
to be beautiful.
And the tree,
unconsulted,
serves still –
as pedestal,
as symbol,
as silent waiter
for a world
it once shaded.
***
Madras Courier originally ran as a broadsheet with a poetry section. It was a time when readers felt comfortable sharing glimpses of their lives through verse. If you have a poem you’d like to submit, do email us at [email protected].
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