Before hunger learned to hurry,
before profit was given a voice,
I stood in the valley of spice—
an Indian Ebony tree,
dark-barked, long-remembering,
named by gods as Diospyros ebenum.
The valley once knew balance.
Rain came when summoned by leaf and stone.
The cardamom bloomed
as it had been taught—
slowly, reverently,
each pod a covenant with time.
Then a new wind crossed the hills.
It spoke of abundance without waiting,
of color without ripening.
Powders fell like ash from an unclean fire.
The soil swallowed bitterness
and said nothing.
The pods grew fat with promise,
but their souls were hollowed.
Green was painted over green,
and the lie shone brighter than truth.
Thus the valley learned
the difference between growth and swelling.
Strangers came bearing scales and trust.
They tasted, and the earth shuddered.
What had been sacred was refused.
Sacks were stacked like unburied dead,
and the spice-wind turned away.
A season of reckoning followed.
Coins vanished.
Names lost their honor.
The land waited.
At last, the powders were abandoned.
Hands learned humility.
Insects returned as messengers.
Roots were forgiven.
The harvest shrank—
but it could be named without shame.
I remain where I was first planted,
keeper of a story the valley repeats:
that greed is not hunger,
but forgetting;
and what is taken from the earth by force
must be paid back in loss.
