The Withering Tree
by Esther Elizabeth Racah
The withering tree stood bare amidst the wood,
Its branches once reached for skies long gone.
Leaves had fallen where they proudly stood,
Resilience faded with each new dawn.
Its trunk was gnarled, scarred by time,
Rooted deep in forsaken earth.
It had struggled to grasp a fleeting rhyme
Of seasons past and vanished mirth.
Winter winds had howled through its limbs,
Shaking loose the last of pride.
Each gust was a reminder of forgotten hymns
In the cold where warmth had died.
Spring had brought no buds from its bark,
No whispers of renewal’s grace.
The withering tree remained stark in the dark,
A witness to nature’s cruel embrace.
Summer’s sun had bypassed its boughs,
Casting shadows on its forlorn frame.
While life thrived in neighbouring crowds,
The tree had stood still, devoid of flame.
Autumn had arrived, but no colours blazed—
They had long since faded away.
The withering tree had endured in a sombre daze,
A symbol of endless, silent decay.
The ground beneath it had cracked and dried,
No rain to quench its thirsty roots.
Silent beneath an empty sky,
Where once it had borne green shoots.
Each storm that passed had left no mark;
Its branches swayed but never bent.
The tree had remained a hollow arc,
Its growth and life long spent.
It stood as a sombre sight,
A monument to forgotten days.
Its vibrant leaves had lost their light,
In a landscape shrouded by decay’s haze.
As seasons changed and years went by,
The tree became a ghostly shade.
Its story whispered to the sky,
In silence, where it slowly decayed.
In the forest where it once reigned,
The withering tree’s memory waned—
A symbol of time’s relentless strain,
Where life’s echoes had long been drained.
