task of the year

Over there,
Where a vacant lot densely filled with tall weeds,
Stood a tall tree for decades.
Villagers nearby had a strange story of a lost child, strolling;

“Ma… where are you?”

“Ma… I miss you.”

A motherless child blankly cries for its mother.
People tentatively speculate
An abandoned corpse lies beneath the tree,
Waiting and wandering

Mama……

A small tree at the time of a child’s death
Burgeons into a luxuriant tree.
The taller it grows,
Higher and farther a child visions.

Mama……

Avoiding and whispering
Supposedly about the damned tree.
Villagers feel the eerie note to a child’s voice;
Enamoring adroitly.
A warning goes into one ear out the other,
I look up for this infamous tree.

At the top its companion
There is a child wearing a raggedy straw hat,
Incessantly gazing at one place;

Mama……

A pitiful child with
Lingering attachment and memories
Still has eyes full of tears