April Moon
For Ira
She arrives after a tedious birth. Black hair like a goblin’s, a granddaughter, whom I’ve not met. “We’ve never seen so much hair!” says the Canadian medico who delivers her.
With a smile that lights up a million bulbs, four months old, she invites her grandfather, 12,000 kilometres away, to visit. He travels with handmade gifts and has a stellar time for five days.
The already splintered world fractures further, as the virus happens to both. The tedium of covid has tied me in knots that I find hard to unravel. I recall the simple rope swing from my childhood days.
He what’s app’s pictures of them together, “She looks just like her mother!”I exclaim.
the roses
different each season—
a mockingbird sings
Dark Moon
For Aunty V
My friendship with an eminent doctor and teacher, twenty-seven years older than me, a single lady whom I call ‘Aunty’, nourishes me.
Our meetings reduce. It’s been three years since we last met. I go to meet her. Her home is just the same as before. I’m taken aback seeing her propped up on a hospital bed, hair all white.
She smiles, holds my hand in her frail one, and requests that I be served tea.
“Guddi it’s so nice to see you.
Aur batao?” (‘tell me more’-in Hindi)
Her eighty-plus sister informs me that Guddi is her niece.
I miss those late summer afternoons, our talks, and her smile. Aunty in her sleeve-less blouses, and gorgeous silk saris, sitting together on my veranda, watching the sun disappear.
midnight-blue skies—
the stars swim
in ink
Rupa Anand is a spiritual seeker and a published writer of experiences. Writing since 2008, her poems are an expression of images, thoughts, ideas, emotions and events that somehow get etched upon her mind and psyche. She says “There is magic in Nature. I hope my poems will connect readers with the beauty and calm of the natural world." Rupa has a BA (Hons) in English Literature from Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi. A cancer survivor, she lives in New Delhi with her husband, daughter and beloved cats.