Perched across the window-sill
the Bonsai bamboo in its puny bowl
feeling at the top of the world,
looking down condescending
at its impoverished, homeless cousin.
The Bamboo tree growing up in the wild
braving the weather, the monsoons battering,
the summer roasting its leaves, once green.
Weathering the fierce winds that leave it swaying,
against its wish to stay still, meditating upon the skies,
it aspires to one day reach.
The Bonsai bamboo slouching comfy
in the apartment air-conditioned,
chuckles at the plight of its cousin, unrealised-
the comforts, the height
and the temperature just right,
are not its making but bestowed upon it.
In turn, leaving it in a wilting slumber,
withering it worse than any weather ever will.
A day in the wild, any given clime
will leave the Bonsai
battered beyond knowing.
Even left to itself
in the very place it sits,
in a matter of days of no upkeep,
wilt away unseen, it sure will.
Stunted in roots, dwarfed of shoots
Bonsai is at the mercy of its owner,
so long as they find it ornamental.
Unlike the Bamboo in the wild that will,
even when cut and cleaved,
continue to croon melodies,
beyond its life,
beyond its time spent in the wild gathering
the songs that'll chime undying,
through the flute it will reed.
Comentários