Used with permission of Managua Gunn

I dream here in this place of ancient magic, listening to the humming telephone wires. Oil wells beat like a thousand hearts. My roots stretch beneath the hill, into the frozen past. The dry desert sands cannot warm the hidden place where the Garden of Eden still flourishes, hidden from man these many thousand years. I was blown to this hill as a seed, more than 400 years ago.

mother lost in time
father wind threw me from her
alone in this place

A child fell, cutting his knee on a pottery shard. His blood watered the sand, pushing me into the soil. In his brief pain, he called to Enki, the Water God, who granted a year of beating rain. Was I blessed by Enki to outlive my kin or cursed to burn in the sun, gaped at by tourists?

Shajarat-al-Hayat
symbol of forgotten time
outliving all loves

 Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham

Inspired by the weekly Haībun challenge.
References:
http://www.worldtoptop.com/mysterious-tree-of-life-bahrain/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_Life,_Bahrain
http://www.bahrain.com/en/vp/things-to-do/top-ten-sights/Pages/Tree-of-Life.aspx#.UqvbGyihDzI