A Stone Painted Blue

The trees look familiar

Tall and sturdy pillars holding the canopy

That protects mother Earth from what lies beyond

Nonetheless leaving it wanting

Of the gentle touches of the Sun.

Yes, the trees look familiar

But they no longer bear the cross marks

I had carved in to their bosoms 

To lead my way out to the plains

I walk a path I am not sure of

A path only I seem to have trodden on 

In the recent past.

A vague memory flashes in a distant corner of the brain

Of a day I had sat in bed, reluctant to sleep,

Eagerly listening to my grandmother

Narrate the story of the mighty forest

Another vague flash of her arms spreading wide

In an attempt to depict the vastness of the woods

Her wrinkled mouth voicing out the words

"What would you do if you find a stone painted blue on the forest floor?"

This sweet reverie is broken by a shimmer of lights from below

There on the forest floor lies the most beautiful stone,

Painted a majestic shade of blue

I try in vain to recollect the rest of the story

Wondering what my grandmother had asked the young me to do

Were I to find the stone.

Run away from it or towards it?

Pick it up and caress it?

I decide upon the latter

A wrong decision, I'll come to realise soon

As I pick up the stone

The majestic blue stone,

The forest seems to move, twisting and twirling,

Till I can no longer breathe

Till I realise I no longer have the nostrils to breathe.

"Relax", the trees whispher to me

"Your leaves will breathe for you"

I realise then, at that point,

A tree has devoured me in, 

Or am I the tree now?

May be I have been one forever

My roots sunk deep into the soil,

Fetching water from grounds afar.

The stone has confined me in perpetuity,

Or liberated me from a cruel and callous world,

I will never know which!