Triveni No. 1

©2019, Olan L. Smith

An oak trees stands proud, it is hard to break, and it is hard to fell―

Who knows the oak tree knows both strength and power.

The oak on the farm stands stripped of limbs, a stance of a toothpick.

A.N. A triveni poetry is an Indian tercet poem created by the Hindi poet, Gulzar. Gulzar says, "I called it triveni because the first two lines meet like the Ganga and the Yamuna and complete a thought, it forms a poem on its own. But beneath the two there is the subterranean flow of another, the Saraswati. Hidden."

The last line holds a twist that changes the whole direction of the poem. In this triveni the negative underlying tow is represented by line 3, and changes strong to powerless, pride to hollowness, and unbreakable to breakable.