The Trees Remember
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
2025, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
I sat on the floor, pen in my hand,
looked up at Papa and asked,
“Tell me your memories, the ones nature runs through!”
He said, “I will tell you of my life— because life in itself is nature.”
“When I was a little boy”,
he continued, his hand drifting like a leaf on water,
“I climbed rocks that seemed as big as the Himalayas.
My childhood existed in the bark of the Neem* trees
and bloomed like the roots of the Gulmohar*,
which we called Krishnachura*.”
Morning Aartis* filled the air
with scented flowers and incense.
Religion was integrated into nature, you see,
as no young boy could enjoy the ‘Fruits of God’
without being reminded of His presence.
The ‘Durga* Pujo* phool*’ would tease the nose,
its scent thick as honey — heady, golden —
and petals, sharp-edged like Our Ma’s trishul* —
from the first day of Pujo,
and linger in the air long after the last,
like a memory too stubborn to leave.
Thama*, however, favored the golden Marigold,
not tied to one God, but to all,
a constant in the cycle of seasons,
ever-present as love.
There were two forests, he said—
One laced with thorns, daring him forward,
a wild kingdom of Jujub* trees,
their fruit his prize for scraped forearms and grit-black fingernails.
The other, alive—
Scorpions skittering into shadows,
a Snake slinking into his home,
the buzz of insects humming, a warning to behold.
As he grew older,
eucalyptus trees became his quiet comfort.
Their scent followed him—
even when he traded adventures
for textbooks and city streets.
Years later, he passed them by in a car,
while I, born into another rhythm,
never touched their bark, never smelled their petals—
only to marvel from afar.
My parents now tend to a garden,
a modest square littered with memoirs of the past:
Neem, Jujub, Marigold,
the Shiuli phool* yet to bloom.
The smell is a safe haven of his previous world,
but it speaks in a tongue I was never taught—
soft and patient, still waiting to be understood.
I didn’t climb the Neem, didn’t chase Jujub fruits,
never learnt the Marigold’s name.
The garden felt too quiet, too grown-up,
too full of silences I wasn’t ready to hear.
But now I begin to see—
the trees stand tall, long after we leave,
retelling the stories of our legacy.
The factories came like floods, drowning our trees in concrete rivers.
We left the village for glass towers, traded bark for walls that never breathed.
Though Thama’s hands have long since folded,
her garden lives in stories and soil beneath the dust,
seeds of old wisdom waiting for someone to listen.
Now I step into that garden—
fingers brushing marigold petals,
the scents telling stories my father once knew,
feeling the pulse of life’s roots beneath my feet.
Because our life is nature, and can be told in memories such,
for nature lives within us, and we live within it.
From the grain of rice in your Annaprashan*,
your first taste of Earth’s quiet blessing,
to the soft snip of hair—
offered to the Ganges* like a whispered prayer.
And when your body returns to ash,
it rises wild, home again in the circle of life.
And so, on the day when our footsteps no longer press this Earth,
the trees will remain,
whispering the stories of my father, of us,
and the lives that nature still cradles in its timeless hands.
Works Cited
The following cultural and religious terms used in this poem are explained here for clarity:
*Neem — A sacred, medicinal tree commonly found in India
*Gulmohar — Royal poinciana tree
*Krishnachura — The crown of Lord Krishna
*Aartis — Devotional songs or prayers
*Durga — Mother Goddess of Power, Strength, and Protection
*Phool — Flower
*Pujo — A worship period, usually for specific gods
*Trishul — Ma Durga’s trident, symbolizing her power to destroy evil and protect the righteous
*Thama — Paternal grandmother
*Shiuli phool — Night-flowering Jasmine, often associated with autumn festivals in Bengal
*Annaprashan — A festival commemorating a baby’s first bite of solid food
*Ganges — The sacred river in India, central to many Hindu rituals and beliefs
This poem is an original work based on oral traditions and personal family knowledge. No external sources were directly quoted or consulted in its creation.
Reflection
Reflection
This poem began as a conversation with my father, but quickly turned into a journey through memory, loss, and rediscovery. I asked him about nature and instead, he gave me his childhood. He spoke of neem trees, mango groves, monsoons, and rituals where prayer was offered with petals. I had never seen that world myself, but his words painted it vividly. In trying to understand his past, I realized how disconnected I had been from nature— not just the trees outside my window, but the ancestral kind that lives in memory, tradition, and soil. I’ve never been the outdoorsy type. Rain meant a good book indoors, while my family danced outside. But through his stories, I began to mourn a bond I never had. This year’s theme, Connections to Nature: Looking Inside, Going Outside, helped me do both. Looking inside meant truly listening to my father, and going outside meant translating his legacy into poetry—before it disappears beneath concrete. What I’ve learned is that nature doesn’t only live in forests; it lives in rituals, memory, and scent. It speaks in the language of marigolds and neem bark, if we choose to listen. My message is simple: our stories are rooted in the earth, and if we don’t remember them, we risk losing more than just trees: we lose parts of ourselves.