The Sight Of Fallen Cypress

A lone cypress In my grandfather's lawn Standing tall and erect Since I could sense life about me I saw it there Still in the brightness Restless in the wind But ever standing Upright and proud As the sole child Bequeathed with honors And the crown The other trees were puny Beside its mighty presence For all the richness in foliage They couldn't match its grace Day after day passed Unmarred by Time Its beauty un-blighted Eclipsing the trees by its side Their branches sprawled in ungainly curves Bent and broken at places Where I hung and swung wildly Till my legs felt the air Or I heard the squeak Of a frail twig And through it all The sunshine and the storms The cypress stood quiet Like a giant among the pygmies Withdrawn from the crowd Shut up in a death-like silence Un-shattered by the noise A deep shade of green Against the pale blue sky A sight I loved And thought about in bed Along with the goblins, fairies And the stately tower The cypress stood deep in my mind Forever young and fighting the odds A thing with no beginning and end I saw with bewildering eyes The spectacle unimagined Across the courtyard lay the cypress Fallen from its height I stood in disbelief Expecting it to rise any moment Greeting the sun Like it always did Its tapering frame rising ever so high Slender yet strong When the harsh gusts shook it madly There it stood, rooted fast And although the wind had howled all night Beating against the shuttered windows With a fury unheard of Still a nightmare it seemed From which I would awaken soon For a fallen cypress I could not imagine Unborn yet In a child's mind. Nosheen Irfan © 2016