Shania Sarup, Class 10, Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai
The only thing they ever noticed about me the only time they’d ever really see through pickled fancies of evermore beneath charred hearts and embers of grief And greed were the unforgiving streams brine that trickled out of the soul’s goblet ever so menacingly Racing beneath the infinite blue toward a sanctuary drooping into the khor, yet standing tall. Pensile streams of wincey attentive to my grievances aniconic friends, heavenly storytellers The willow shielded me from a minatory noon from the masquerading masses she tells to me in a monotone drawl the thanatography of our demeanour. She never meant it to frighten me only to caution. And for a score, this was routine Her viridescent leaves flailed in the north breeze, howbeit she directed it all to me. The weather-beaten willow shielded me from days of deluge through tacent mornings and bustling noons She neither felt, nor did I that her affections was unrequited A forenoon I returned, and no more was she scattered round the khor empty leaves, a dead breeze the north wind had left superficially deft the masquerading mobs made their way past her desecrated stump even when her glory dissipated she offered me a place to sit Perchance I’d have done more and saved the willow tree now I’ll never get to tell her how much she meant to me