Anju Kishore
Sandglass
I am to be married off in a week at our village temple. The family has gathered from various parts of the country and abroad in our sprawling ancestral house that Granma currently rules over.
Early on my wedding morning, the fields call to me. I slip out of Granma’s stern sight, ignoring her commandment that a bride is to stay indoors until her wedding is over. The verdant paddy that she had written to me about so lovingly is now being threshed, bundled, and tossed onto a rising pile of hay.
bridal sari
granma’s fingers
pleat a sunray
As I step out of my room, dressed in silks and heirloom jewelry, I am greeted by decorative bunches of paddy hung from the clay-tiled awning.
spring showers
the lingering warmth
of a wedding feast
Months pass. The family has gathered again in the old village house, this time in response to a telegram stating Granma’s demise. While her last rites are being performed, I stare at a bamboo stretcher with a thin bed of dry holy grass. Granma would soon set off on her final journey before meeting the great-grandchild in my womb.
cold moon
the wind sweeps up
a fallen marigold
About the Author
Formerly a finance professional, Anju Kishore is a Pushcart Prize nominee, a published poet, and an award-winning editor of numerous free-verse anthologies. Her book of poems inspired by the Syrian civil war, …and I Stop to Listen (AuthorsPress, 2018), was well received. Her poems are part of many anthologies and journals.