Hillsides blasted for road construction look embarrassed, 
naked and brown, their minerals glint in the evening sun;
wood and bamboo stands lean, weary from weight bearing  
gripping loose and dusty earth, furrowed by earth movers.
Witchy and gnarled, a pine’s hairy roots twitch for air,
a long scaly crocodile felled across the nakedness.

My old math teacher once asked in all seriousness, ‘Are you a dry sponge?
I had gasped for breath as chalk from an algebra scribble board hit my head.
An old gardener stands at a bend, dog on leash, staring beyond.
He mutters: ‘Cloudburst there, there, there, nothing here.’
Workmen squat in a group, unmasked; 
small logs are lit, a dented pot hisses;
two men slice grey meat on a mounted cutter.
The smell of rustling pine needles rules.

A tall uprooted tree juts over the precipice,
its tapering crown pierces a rustling tree,
clusters of pine needles shine like lanterns lit by
the setting sun.
I rest on the trunk, feel the breeze in my hair, in the cornstalks below.
The bark beneath my hands is rough like crocodile skin, 
branches shorn, shafts left - pointers to a dual death. 

Still it breathes beneath my fingers.