Not just another tree

When you turned the corner yesterday, I realised,
a part of me left with you
I have seen your tears, heard your rants and felt your frustrations
drunk on your happiness when you returned home,
I have seen the spring in your step
never oblivious to your joys!

You always stopped by when you were burdened
and poured out your anguish to me
the low marks, not being selected to the football team,
broken heart and a not so good job
I have been a witness to all
I asked no questions nor offered solace
you wanted to hear no platitudes,
your tirade directed against the world
I quietly absorbed!

I may be just a tree on the side of the road
but you often stopped by to swing on my boughs
as sunlight filtered through my verdant leaves
to run your fingers across my gnarled trunk
and get your knees skinned at your umpteen attempts to reach the topmost branch
how can I forget the games you played on me and around me as a kid!

Before you embark on a new path
you stopped one last time
to feel life pulsating within this old bark,
like many others before you,
I bear the imprint of your palms on my soul.
come around with your kids some time in the future
the thought of playing with them will sustain me.

https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2021/08/02/what-do-you-see-93/

Melancholy and hope

Under the cover of rain
melancholy walked in quietly, without even knocking
sharing my room these days

though she came empty handed
she carries a lot of extraneous baggage
my feeble protests do not deter her
from strewing pain and guilt around
my eyes she refuses to meet
yet sits on their sleep hungry swollen rims

she forages each nook and cranny
surreptitiously nibbling at the stale remnants of joy for sustenance
she tucks me under the blanket of wretchedness every night
singing a dolorous threnody that keeps me awake
lacing her finger through mine
she sits with a hangdog expression.

Hope that lay in an apathetic torpor
within my withered and withdrawn soul
slowly shed sluggishness to become sapient
unable to watch melancholy getting ensconced

she leaves a fragile paper bag through the ajar window
that faintly twinkles with tiny sequins of happiness
my hands, tired of the burden of pessimism
clutch at the sliver of sanguinity

struggling for coherence
I start to stitch haphazard patterns
melancholy now often skulks in a corner
lethargic and inefficacious in the face of hope.