A Poem by Win Pe

The Thitpoke Tree
(famous landmark on Rangoon University campus)

Most when I do not see it,
I see it in my heart.
Most when I am not near it,
it is near my thoughts,
attendant, attentive,
ready to slip in,
to spread its branches in the sky of my mind,

to flutter its leaves in the wind of memories.
In one of those classrooms
within easy reach of its falling leaf,
I learned to ride the pitch and yaw of reason.
It is not those classrooms I remember,
nor do I recall that heavy structure
where a piece of paper and a handshake confirm
some ability to cox the boat of intellect.
Most I remember
lying on back beside its roots,
looking into the deep well of its branches,
the sky at the other end like well-water
and I drinking deep.
Most I remember
taking my emotion and intuitions there,
letting the wind ruffle my deepest feelings
as it ruffles the leaf in the crook of a branch.
Man does not live in the edifices of reason.
Man does not dwell in the structures of intellect.
He lives as a tree lives,
open to the skies and winds of perception,
drinking the rain of passions and impulse,
soaking up the sunshine of affection.
The sap of feeling passes through him,
awakening each part of him to life.
So thitpoke tree,
let me live as you have lived for others,
and so will live to the wind and sun,
so let me live as you have lived for me.

Source: www.maymyanmar.com