O you shaggy-headed banyan tree standing on the bank of the pond,
have you forgotten the little child, like the birds that have nested
in your branches and left you?
Do you not remember how he sat at the window and wondered at the
tangle of your roots that plunged underground?
The women would come to fill their jars in the pond, and your huge
black shadow would wriggle on the water like sleep struggling to wake up.
Sunlight danced on the ripples like restless tiny shuttles weaving
golden tapestry.
Two ducks swam by weedy margin above their shadows, and the child
would sit still and think.
He longed to be the wind and blow through your rustling branches,
to be your shadow and lengthen with the day on the water, to be a bird
and perch on your topmost twig, and float like those ducks among the
weeds and shadows.