The Garden

You had planted that first tree here.

I remember you walking sprinkler in hand

Surveying the watered, tiny saplings

Like a doctor among the new-born.

You used to talk of the green days yet to come,

And I could almost hear the cackle of birds

Returning to their nests in the evening…

In these towers, which we were planting then.

You had told me what I recall even now:

“Every leaf is a dream coming to life.

And spring is just the vision

Of a million leaves dreaming.”

Now as autumn winds blow, the leaves are falling

In shades of gold, and yellow, and dappled red.

Hundreds of dreams, falling fast, slowly failing.

How frail are our dreams, how brief their stay,

How lovely they look as they break.

Diptesh Ghosh