Literary Yard

Search for meaning

By: Shilpa Rajagopal 

Photo by Johann Siemens

In botany one day we learned about tylosis,
the physiological process – a phenomenon, really-
that protects the heartwood in trees
a battalion of vessels barricading the decay so that darkness no longer enshrouds the wood

I sit at my desk, listening to this heroic story
amazed by the resiliency of plants
by the mechanisms of self-defense they’ve created for themselves
and wonder
if there’s something similar
a brigade of undeterred veins and arteries
protecting my own heart
against this world

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