By Poonam Mulchandani
Trees, my dearest friends, are so little known,
In listings and identification apps and wikipedias alone.
There are many descriptions that enumerate their physical characters;
their genus, their species, their leaf type as indicators.
They are identified, classified and summed up rather dryly,
By botanists and ecologists who speak much too wryly.
There is never a hint of their splendour, their brilliance, their grandeur and their glory,
Let alone their originality, their character, their perfume and their story.
So here is a small and very humble attempt,
To bring forth their magnificence by being a bit more effervescent.
Searched from ancient texts, archives and forgotten citations,
But mostly an expression of my very own enchantments.
My awe, my excitement,
My delight and fascination.
An articulation of how deeply I am moved by this grandiose creation.
Here’s hoping that some of this rubs off on you readers,
And ripples off in dreamings and musings for spirited creators.
So, which one shall I start with – the biggest, the most-known, the typical or the grandest?
Or perhaps the one that charmed me the firstest?
Well then it will be the one and only,
None other than this beauty called Mimusops elengii.
It stood outside my window in the midst of a coconut grove,
And I watched it every day from my brick and bamboo abode.
I was then a young romantic who had just quit the city,
To pursue a life in nature’s proximity.
And so, curious to discover more about these elengiis,
I looked them up in a book that talked about trees.
It said that it's timber is valuable, it's fruit quite edible,
But of its subtler features it spoke very little.
The carpet of dainty white flowers it makes at it's feet,
to all the senses it’s a sumptuous treat.
In India these flowers are finely revered,
Collected by grandmas and garlanded for their prayers.
Bakul is the Marathi name of this tree and its flowers,
It’s thick shade summons in the sunniest hours.
Today I feel nostalgic when I cross this species again,
It revives sweet memories and emotions I cannot explain.
My first remembrance of petrichor after a long summer spell,
My first taste of slow life that I now live so well.
The softness of those white flowers that brought me utmost glee,
The reverence that it stirred in me this Mimusops elengii.