Shrehya Taneja, Poetry 2021 Featured Writer

TIP-TOE

There are some nights

when great trees fall.

You see me sitting quietly,

with the whispers of leaves.


The great trees fall, they cast

shadows on the wall.

The leaves begin whispering

a fearful trill.


As the shadows on the walls keep growing,

I keep on dying...

hearing that fearful trill,

getting lost in the gloom of dust and ages.



I keep on dying. Again,

you write me down in history.

All lost now in the gloom of dust and ages.

Unaccustomed to courage,


history writes me down.

Father sits on the bench:

I look at him, always accustomed to courage,

“Give me your hand.”


Calmly, my father sits on the bench.

You see me sitting quietly,

I give him my hand

on some nights.


Source: A Pantoum composed from a single line of poems by Maya Angelou (On the Pulse of Morning,Caged Bird, Still I Rise, A conceit, The Lesson, Insomniac, Song for the old ones,On Aging, When great trees fall, Our Grandmothers, Touched by an Angel)