The Mango Tree Heard and Answered

 



The Mango Tree Heard and Answered

In the courtyard of stone and syllable,
where Latin bells lean into Kannada noon,
a sapling once entered the soil
without argument.

One hand placed it—
a hand that carried prayer in its sleeves.
Another watered it—
a hand that carried dust and discipline.
Two minds watched it—
one thinking in English rain,
one dreaming in Kannada sun.

The earth did not ask
which language named the root.
The wind did not ask
which scripture blessed the seed.

Years passed like quiet pages.
Leaves came.
Shade came.
But no flower dared the branch.

Silence began to grow louder
than the tree.

“Perhaps,” said impatience,
“it has nothing more to give.”

An axe, even when unraised,
casts a long shadow.

But the one who knelt closest to the soil
whispered to time,
“Wait.”

And waiting—
that oldest, most unfashionable virtue—
stood its ground.

For trees listen.

They listen to footsteps of doubt.
They listen to words that threaten departure.
They listen to hope spoken softly
by hands that believe in seasons.

A year turned.

Then one morning,
the air changed its grammar.

White stars opened on green sentences.
The branches spoke in fragrance.
The courtyard filled with a language
no tongue had taught it.

The tree had heard.

Not the command to cut—
but the plea to trust.

It had listened past doctrine,
past designation,
past the borders men draw in air.

And when it chose to answer,
it did so in fruit.

What is a tree
but patience embodied?
What is faith
but the courage to wait
when nothing proves itself?

In that small orchard of faiths and faculties,
a lesson ripened:

Roots do not care
who stands above them.
They answer to care,
to time,
to harmony unspoken.

And sometimes,
when we think nothing is happening,
the quietest lives are listening—
waiting for us
to believe in them
one season longer.

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