Tree : Arundhathi Subramaniam

It takes a certain cussedness 
to be a tree in this city, 
a certain inflexible woodenness 

to dig in your heels 
and hold your own 
amid lamp-posts sleek as mannequins 
and buildings that hold sun and glass together 
with more will-power than cement, 

to continue that dated ritual, 
re-issuing a tireless 
maze of phalange and webbing, 
perpetuating that third world profusion 
of outstretched hand, 
each with its blaze of finger
and more finger – 
so many ways of tasting neon, 
so many ways of latticing a wind, 
so many ways of being ancillary to the self 
without resenting it.
~ Arundhathi Subramaniam ( from ' Where I Live' New & Selected Poems)