Sankha Ghosh

Today, it is not for me to speak,
yet, let me say:
Here I stand at the bend of the road,

before me
the long trunk shorn of its branches
cold and silent,

within the crevices of its ageing bark
hidden
the capitulations of many decades,

also, possibly,
the memories of having sheltered some,
the rise and the fall of the axe;

Then,
the sounds and prints of the many footsteps fading
towards the Ganga


leave me here,
age-wrecked, blind and
childless!