Photo courtesy of NASA's image library
My pen is a rake, moist with unpeeling
"There is a banyan tree which has its roots upward and its branches down and whose leaves are the Vedic hymns. One who knows this tree is the knower of Vedas." —The Bhagavad Gita
After the rainy night, deep in the one
tree forest, the koel spills a puddle
of memory. It seeps into the porous
underbelly of earth to rise up again
as petrichor to wander through
its hall of limbs carrying earthy tales
from the tulle mesh of fungus—
how they cradled forests
in their porous hearts. Shivelight
etches new refrains on its pillars
for monkeys. Moss-stars
on its buttressed trunk filter
time into its ancient core.
The banyan tree unites in its
separate trees
clambering up the variegated bark
to lose in the meanings
multiplying with its leaves
sliding down aerial roots
to travel through the lace of
mycorrhizal wilderness.
