The Oak's Rings of Life

He stood at the edge of the browned out field, solitary in the deepening gloom of dusk,

his age showing in his limbs, deep veined, gnarled and almost impossibly twisted,

like a coiled rope that a wanton kid at play had twisted up and tied into wicked knots,

thin and bent as a much used wire, hunched against the cold wind that blew at him.

He remembered a time when he had been oh so young and so very full of dreams,

jostling for space with other saplings in a meadow that had been full and bursting,

blustering forth with the gaiety that is life itself, strong, straight and proud they stood,

ready to face the anything the world could throw as only a young innocent could.

Standing in the shadow of the other old oaks in the meadow tall and proud,

Like roman columns as ancient as time itself and thicker than one could even dream,

like kings towering over all else, overseeing the land that they seemingly ruled,

not one of their heads bowed, their bark an armour against anything at all.

He stood beside his father and his uncles, a mere stripling trying to match them,

barely reaching the end of their roots, knotty, curled up, running deep aground,

like a lambkin peeping out from in between the legs of a herd, wonderstruck,

watching, seeing and listening to everything around, absorbing everything like a sponge.

In the summer of his youth, when he had grown into a lad trying to be a man,

and stood stronger and taller than many of his cousins, a natural leader in the making,

he still stood in the shadow of his father, watching him and learning from him,

like clay that was still being formed, moulded and baked by his father’s hands and eyes.

And when he grew tired of pretending to be a grown up, all strong, tall and resilient,

it was his mother’s gentle whispers and soothing touch that comforted his young heart,

and made him want to stay by her side and fall asleep listening to her soft voice whispering,

stories of his ancestors proud, inspiring dreams where he would be as great as they were.

Then came a cruel wind that blew in men with their axes and saws, cruel and biting,

glinting in the sunlight with each swing that cut into the life and limbs of his uncles,

he watched with tears that he could not stop, the sight imprinted in his young eyes,

as each of his elders  wise fell, heavy and lifeless, in a heap that shook the very ground.

His parents were among the ones who fell to the cruel blades, all that was left of them,

a stump that marked their gravestones, an epitaph that had not even been written as yet,

his dad a man who was cut down in his all his glory and his pride, leaving behind a child,

that was still trying to walk in his footsteps, measuring each stride against his dad’s.

His mother a strong woman who lived with her heart as much as his dad lived by his mind,

a comforting touch and a soothing word for everyone around, an angel who lived to love,

t’was her voice and her words that he missed, leaving a cold and empty space that burned,

with each tear he shed, a black hole that yawed open where his heart should have been.

Soon the meadow was forlorn and half empty, all the elders having been felled in their prime,

only the too young or the too old left there, unwanted or unusable in the eyes of the brutal men,

everybody was left bewildered and directionless, like paper boats carried along by a raging river,

not knowing where to turn, what to do, standing motionless and yet buffeted by the tides of time.

The son of the leader, the leadership mantle fell on him, a burden whose weight he keenly felt,

but one that was equally his responsibility, a cross handed from father to son to carry forth, 

needing to appear strong and decisive by day, even when his heart quailed and trembled,

desperately each night for the strong hand of his father and the comforting one of his mother.

Time passed and he grew stronger than he himself had imagined in his boyhood dreams,

towering over the remaining few in the meadow, a new clutch of young ones now sprouted,

filling the emptied spaces and adding to their numbers, bringing  cheer to their darkened hearts,

and the oaks thought life would go back to being normal and peaceful, the way it once had been.

In the many summers that passed, he found a soul mate, one who was unafraid to stand at his side,

one who would look him in the eye and tell him if he was wrong, unwavering in her support always,

their shared dreams painted a picture of a tomorrow that he had been afraid to think of by himself,

the hole in his heart filled up slowly with each passing day they spent entwined in their togetherness.

Peace reigned in the meadow and the birds came back to roost, building nests and chirping about,

it seemed like life itself had come back in full bloom as the oaks finally felt the peace and quiet,

and he looked upon his subjects and smiled a smile of contentment, holding up a nest of mynahs,

in the crook of his shoulder, the very same one that bore the weight of the world over the years.

There was that time when a woodpecker decided to nest in the that knotted cavity, going rat-a-tat,

at odd times in the day, often times waking him up in his siesta or breaking his train of thought,

making his mate laugh out loud at his attempts to shake the bird off, even as she pecked harder,

his subjects shook to stop themselves laughing, the whole meadow quivered in seeming delight.

On the turn of one such happy summer, came a stealthy blight, mutilating all that it touched,

causing ugly warts and curling up new leaves and killing, causing even before the end of summer,

until the trees stark and brooding stood, like victims waiting for the inevitable axe to fall,

cutting off life’s blood, turning a full blown tree to rotten wood, withering life in it’s very prime.

He watched his family, his friends around the grove wither and drop, life ebbing with each day,

the canopy of green that had shielded the ground from the sun, wind and rain above, disappearing,

brown and ashen leaves strewed the ground below and withered bark powdered under birds feet,

his own branches succumbing to the sweet disease that stole through his veins, a cold trail of death.

He and some others lived to see another summer when the cold turned back to the late summer heat,

the cold blight running from the heat that returned to save their brood from being wiped out entirely,

like someone had just taken an eraser to a beautiful drawing and completely negated its existence,

leaving the sheet as blank as when it had all started, save for a few lines that hadn’t been rubbed out.

While he had lost his limbs and now felt like a cripple who needed the help of a crutch to stand,

but the blight had robbed him of his mate and her empty space beside him felt like a ghost limb,

a raw wound that would not heal, oozing out blood every so often as freely as his tears flowed,

for the one who was no longer at his side and the brood that had nearly disappeared in the twilight.

Now there were precious few of them left, scattered like chess pieces at the very end of the game,

each waiting for the next master stroke that they believed would be the last, scarred by fear,

with nothing to look forward to than mere living out their days, holding onto their fading memories,

like so many others who choose to find meaning in the past, ignoring their current meaninglessness.

And he then stood nearly all alone, bereft of all he could call his own, with no kingdom to oversee,

like a shepherd who stood without purpose at the edge of the field, with no more sheep to tend,

his wizened appearance that of one who had aged too early, an artist donning makeup for a part,

in a play that had been written by the master creator, controlled and directed by an unseen hand.

The player whose presence was never felt in the game and yet who had started the game itself,

who made it felt that he was in control until each such lesson where he ruefully learnt otherwise,

that control was not even an illusion in his own mind, but just a mere sleight of the creator’s hand,

a hand that equally blessed and took away, whose wisdom only could decide which was to be when.

And so he lived, while all others fell beside him, wishing he wouldn’t wake up the next morning,

and opening his eyes to another dawn that broke as if only to mock him of his useless wishes,

as ever so often another fell in the dust, the meadow being cleared slowly as if by a magic hand,

irresolute and unshakeable in is path, slowly but surely approaching the final chapter in the book.

And so the summers went, each one marking its passing on his hardened and peeling bark,

now hanging like tatters of a ruined garment that had been overused, his branches now bereft,

of the leaves that once stood out like a veritable forest themselves, a canopy that protected all,

his once proud mien now withered and stooping, scrawny limbs stretching out in every direction.

And looked out each day as the sun marked its path across the sky, untiringly marking its path,

waiting for his turn to come, as the meadow dried up around him and all that was living died,

the once proud purveyor who wanted to stand tall in his father’s shadow now bent down with age,

feeling his head cradled against his mother as her soft voice whispered to him another night’s story.

As he held the hand of his loved one and stared out into the setting sun, feeling her warmth,

and her strength even after all these years, the one he talked to and the voice he listened to,

as he spent each sleepless night wondering if it would be his last, an end to this living that wasn’t,

for solitary we must go as we came this life, one marked only by memories, others and our own.