The Champak Tree

Close to our ancestral home Is an ancient champak tree It now stands almost leafless n’ bare With its face turned to the sun and sky Once from far, everyone could see This lush green Champak tree It stood in all beauty and grace And carpeted the ground in fallen blooms Its lovely blossoms were so redolent Like tube roses, heady and fragrant In its dark and leafy glade How as children, we sat and played Men weary of work in its sprawling shade Were sheltered from the heat of midday sun Once it was a bower of sylvan ease And on its boughs, birds merrily sang Rustled in wind and shaken in storm It braved the inclement weather all these years With its roots boring deep into the ground Nothing could uproot the tree from its base How many stories it has to tell How many robins roosted in its verdure How many fledglings took wings into the sky, From the tiny nests built on its twigs Now its ancient trunk and gnarled branches Proclaim sadly that it is about to wither The tree has just turned itself into A ghostly shadow of its former self But the fragrance of these champak flowers Which still bless the tree in one and two As if determined to proclaim themselves Continue to perfume the surrounding air This tree is so much like my ancestral home Once the seat of life and bounty Now lying desolate and empty Stays spreading memories fragrant! What soulful saga the house can retell Of how my parents accomplished their task Putting all into making it a haven sweet For three generations of an extended family!