“One Complete Year”

“One Complete Year”

The carpenter came seeking a chair,
a place for a crown to rest,
but the forest breathed like an ashram at dawn
and offered him a life instead.

Among many trees standing in silent prayer,
their trunks dark with prayer,
he chose the oldest teak,
Aged like a rishi who had watched
many suns rise and fall
Without asking their names.

“I have come to cut you,” he said,
not harshly,
but as one announces truth
To the fire before a ritual.

“Why me?” asked the tree,
its voice falling softly,
Like a leaf surrendering to earth.

“Because you know weight,”
The carpenter replied.
“You have borne heat and rain,
Scarcity and abundance.
You have stood long enough.
to carry a King,
And do not forget yourself.”

“Then grant me time,” said the tree,
As one asks for a final circumambulation
Around life.

So time was given,
Like alms offered to the breath.
Seasons arrived in procession.

Leaves returned,
Green as prāṇa awakening in the body.
Flowers opened,
As quiet mantras, learning light.
Fruits ripened,
offered freely to passing hands,
While travellers rested in its shade
as beneath a temple tree,
calling it refuge,
Calling it a blessing.

When the leaves fell again,
They did so without grief,
like clothes laid aside
After a long journey.

“I have lived,” said the tree,
“not in years,
But in awareness.
I have seen each season.
without hurry.”

The axe descended,
not as violence,
But as a release.
The chair rose steadily and still,
Ready to serve.

And within its grain,
like a sacred syllable held in wood,
rested for a single year,
lived fully,
Offered completely.

Life is not fulfilled by duration,
But by presence.
One who bows to every season
reaches the end
Without fear.