Love Poem: An Isolated Tree
Sayeed Abubakar Avatar
Written by: Sayeed Abubakar

An Isolated Tree

Do you tell me to set my roots into air?
Say, when and where did the procession of trees
raise the slogan of storm and seize the blue of sky
by its palms, being isolated from soil?

Do you say it living? Say, this continual isolation
of a tree and soil-is it the name of living?

Think of that soil, o Love, on whose breast
there is no tree, no carpet of herbs, leaves and grass,
where no farmer comes ever taking his plough
to sing the songs of crops and no bird comes
to fill the arteries of wind with the songs of blood,
where only the dust and the sand round the year
mourn and scream soundless like a grave-
do you want to be such a soil, such a waste land?

O my Soil,
I will give you forests, a vast world of eternal green,
where animals roam, birds crowd and chirp;
I will give you clouds, rains and storms of peace
if you, loving me a little bit, devour all my roots.