Branches

The branches were taut as an arrow
or directly ploughing the air with arms shaped like pitchforks.
They could never envision
the violence of our world.

In a farm next to this foliage
tailored by someone with superb skills,
bearing a village's heartland and the phonetics of air,
were a farmer and his cows.
They were singing, without
words,
the last notes
of an agrarian song.

***

No animals rustled.
But three teenage lads
took care of this time
of the evening.
They asked me my name.

One of them
gave me a good smile.
He was the countryside's
rising sun.
He said the river
was just an ordinary string of water now.

The call for prayer came
when he put his arms
around his friends' shoulders.

Shoulder to shoulder
they walked
but the river didn't end.
Similarly,
that evening of amity
and fulfillment
didn't end for them.
All evenings
are theirs
for this devotion
to each other.

The branches sway.
Moths dance
unabashedly around them
and little mosquitoes hum like theremins.
Long may this countryside live
with them
and the three lads.