I know this tree.
Bare and thin like
the air I breathe.
I can see it shining
on my night sky,
like a star.
The January breeze
passes through its
transparency as if
it wasn’t there at all,
but soon begins to feel
as if there was something
it had just left behind,
absentmindedly—
something speechless
but true, like itself.
It has been there
since I was born—
thin and leafless, like
my skin and bones.
Bibhu Padhi has published ten books of poetry. His poems have appeared in distinguished magazines. throughout the English-speaking world.
