The Sapling
Jayita Mukherjee
Hope, to me, does not exist in a void. It becomes meaningful when there is something difficult to hope against. In this poem, a child finds a small sapling growing amidst destruction and begins to care for it. The sapling becomes a quiet image of life’s persistence: fragile, uncertain, yet continuing to grow. The child’s innocence makes this hope feel real. It is not a belief that everything will magically become better, but the choice to keep watering something small and vulnerable without knowing whether it will survive. To me, hope is the decision to care for life, even when its future remains uncertain.
The Sapling
There is a little green plant
growing in the rubble.
I don't know
who planted it.
Perhaps the rain did.
Perhaps the wind.
Perhaps it simply got lost
and came here by mistake.
It has big leaves,
bigger than my hands,
and a very thin stem
that bends when I touch it.
I touch it gently.
I don't want to hurt it.
Perhaps it is rice.
No, rice doesn't look like this.
Perhaps corn.
Or wheat.
I have seen wheat once,
I think,
in a picture.
Perhaps it is an apple tree.
I hope it is.
I have never eaten
an apple by myself.
Perhaps it is a magic plant.
That would explain everything.
Perhaps that is why
it is growing here,
among the stones
and broken windows
and pieces of people's houses.
Perhaps magic plants
like difficult places.
Perhaps when it grows big
it will have rice on one branch,
corn on another,
wheat somewhere higher,
and apples,
lots of apples,
red and round
and shining.
I have been hungry
for so many days
that I think
I could eat all of them.
But Mama used to say
that we must be patient.
She said freedom
was worth waiting for.
I wonder what freedom tastes like.
Perhaps it tastes like bread.
Perhaps it tastes like milk.
Perhaps it is sweet.
The men who came here
said they had come
to give us freedom.
Then other men came
wearing different uniforms,
and they said
they had come to give it too.
I don't understand.
Why does freedom
need so many soldiers?
Why do they all carry guns
if they are bringing something good?
Maybe when I am older
I will understand.
For now,
I would rather have bread.
The planes are flying again.
Mama says not to look up
when they come,
but I sometimes do.
They look very small
from down here.
Smaller than birds.
At night
the sky becomes orange,
and the buildings
make loud cracking sounds
before they fall.
I don't like that sound.
It sounds like
someone breaking
a giant plate.
I wonder where Mama is.
She told me to wait.
Maybe she is under
one of the fallen houses.
Maybe she is in a tunnel.
There must be tunnels.
Mama told me once
that kings used to dig them
under their palaces
to hide their treasure.
Maybe Mama found one.
Maybe she is sitting there now
beside a mountain of gold,
waiting for me to find her.
I hope she didn't forget
where she hid it.
I carry some water
in my hands
for the little plant.
Most of it falls out
before I reach it.
I try again.
My hands are not very good
at carrying water.
Mama's are.
Mama's hands
can carry almost anything.
She once told me
that gold was not
the greatest treasure.
Knowledge was.
I didn't understand that either.
How can knowledge be treasure
if you cannot put it
in a little box?
But perhaps
she meant books.
Books have stories.
And stories have places.
Maybe the plant
will grow books.
Wouldn't that be wonderful?
Books hanging
from all its branches,
small ones,
big ones,
books with blue covers
and yellow covers,
books about kings
and hidden tunnels,
books about oceans
and countries
I have never seen.
Perhaps I could pick one
whenever I was hungry.
Not to eat.
Just to read.
And perhaps
when I know enough,
I will know
where Mama is.
I will know
what freedom means.
I will know
why the men keep coming.
I will know
why our houses fell.
I will know
why the planes
never seem to get hungry.
Perhaps knowledge
really is a treasure.
Perhaps it can take me
somewhere beyond here.
So I water the plant
again.
Tomorrow I will come back.
Perhaps by then
it will have another leaf.
Perhaps two.
Perhaps a flower.
Perhaps an apple.
And if it is a magic plant,
perhaps tomorrow
it will have a book.
I will pick the smallest one.
I will sit beside it,
and wait for Mama.
After all,
she told me
the greatest treasures
are the ones
that help you find
your way home.