If i bring a sapling back

And grow it amid cement, pushed six inches away,

And it does, tall but lonely,

Would it say "Lost in the humans"?


Let me feel the ease of being,

And the ease of being lost in the birches.

It's their habitat, and their gentle sway

Tells me i'm welcome, so i like to think.


No harbinger of concrete, no leafy dream to buy,

No axe to grind, and be it all as it may,

I'll trace, in due course, my long way home.

And stand flat on paved paths

And tiled floors, not like this, angled

On sloping hillside, one hand

Steadying at this birch's sturdy trunk.


No, I will not kidnap a sapling back.

Birches, be not lost in the humans.



© Sanjib Basu