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The Krishnachura Tree

Mukut Borpujari

My neighbor had decided to chop the Krishnachura tree.
He is right, of course; the tree is over 20 years old,
huge, sprawling
and spreading over the jagged road
like a giant umbrella.
It’s clearly a danger
tilting to the side of the house —
some feeble wind
my neighbor said could uproot it.
Every year, it sent out its bursts of orange blossoms;
blooms and blooms,
blooms relentlessly;
threw shooting flames out into the sky
more stunning than fireworks on New Year’s Eve.

Father bed-ridden, lay motionless looking out the window,
gazed at the fireworks, his head on the pillow —
might have seemed like forever to him
who used to stomp around the neighborhood;
watched that tree full of gray birds
chirping,
chattering,
flitting here and there
and the other-worldly blazing petals
rhythmically waving against the wind.

My neighbor, true to his word,
brought an ax and felled the tree at its stump.

He was right, of course.

The shoot came back the following year,
its clusters are unflinchingly parading their
bursts of rebellious leaves; albeit,
where there was a canopy of flames
there’s now just a handful
here and there.
One strand in particular
desperately reaching out to the window
with a fistful of orange flames
where he was
waiting patiently for its return.

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