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  • For Year 2000-07




  • Home > G for Gender > Gender Poems > The Moonflower Tree

    The Moonflower Tree
    by Zehra Nigah

      As it in a dream,
      I remembered last night,
      The tree in a corner of my garden,
      Studded with flowers of moonlight.

      I would play beneath its shade
      Sheltered afternoons long form the sun
      Swing on the boughs, meeting them as they swayed
      Touch the flowers and run
      Into its tr4unk, had been sunk,
      Scores of nails.
      Many a time, had I been warned
      Not to touch those nails.

      That tree, they said,
      Was haunted.
      But a wise man
      Had cast a spell on it
      Trapped the giant within
      Transfixed him with nails
      Should anyone pull out those pins
      It would release the genie within,

      Which would devour, every flower,
      Which would sap every leaf.

      Then this house, this home would burn
      In a flash, into ashes it would turn.

      Within the confines of this body and soul
      Dwells such a moon-silvered tree
      Its leaves I've always confided in
      Each flower has been a friend to me.
      Still, I dearly love
      The shade of this, my tree.
      And in its trunk until this day
      Lives bewitched that same genie
      Even now I live in dread
      If ever I should touch those nails
      That ogre might escape
      The flowers be may not devour
      The leaves be may not want
      But my home would surely burn!
      Would it really into ashes turn?

     

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