BROTHER NEEM

Brother Neem
You must be a hundred years old
Standing sentinel before our ancestral home.
My earliest memory of you
As a little child
Was of fear.

You were so big and dense
So the servants kept us
Children at bay.
Snakes could be lurking there.

Still I remember
The joy of discovery
Of wide-eyed wonder
On finding bright green parrot feathers
In the dense under growth.

Then I went away
To boarding school in the hills
To see you only in winter
When you were bare
Having shed your green canopy.

As a young boy
With my .22 rifle
I liked you bare.
It was easy to spot
The doves and pigeons
Silhouetted against the sky.

Then I grew into a young man
With all the trauma of youth.
And on the way I met Jesus.
I had to relearn life and its values.
We are here not to take life
But to give our lives for others.

And that is just what you did.
When I came back home
And settled down
I saw you with different eyes.

Even in scorching summer
It was cool as ever in your shade.
In Kanpur’s concrete jungle
Fuming and spewing pollution,
You were a green oasis
The lungs of purification.

There were many that coveted you
But did not respect you.
They said to me, “Cut it down”
And build something grand,
You will make lots of money.
I did not have the heart.

This twelfth of July
You heard a whisper
That you were no longer needed.
You did not plead your case.
You lowered your mighty arms
And bit the dust from which you came.

You could have exacted your price
For all you did these many years.
The previous night it was
Our nephew’s marriage in your embrace
But you waited till all had gone
And then you lowered your arms.

Like Jesus on the Cross
Stretching out to all humanity
Or like Moses with arms uplifted
Praying for his people’s victory.
As long as his arms were raised
His people won, till the setting sun.

Brother Neem our Brother Douglas
Followed you two days later.
His son was married
So too his sun now set
On a train
Trundling into the Midwest.

Brother Neem
Had you been in Bethlehem
Joseph would have preferred you
To a cave in the hillside.

Had you been in Nazareth
You would have heard
Mary preparing the boy Jesus
For a life of love and truth.

Had you been in Jerusalem
They would have cut you down
To make a rough hewn cross
To hang their naked shame
Little knowing
It would rise again.

As Isaiah prophesied about Jesus
“A new shoot would sprout
From the stump of Jesse
The wolf would dwell with the lamb,
The lion with the calf
And a little child would lead them”.

How can I thank you Brother Neem?
By stretching out my arms like yours.
Till it hurts, as Mother Teresa would say.
Before another American tries to patent you
I send you my grateful greetings.
Oh my Brother Neem. Namoh. Namoh.

* This piece was originally written in 1998 when these events actually occurred