June 2021
Geetha Ravichandran
ravichandran.geetha@gmail.com
Bio Note: I had just been transferred by my employer to a new city, Mumbai, when the pandemic hit us last year. Away from family, I started writing poems, after a gap of many years and splashing paint on canvas. Some of the poems got published, while the paintings have remained a constant source of amusement to friends and family, even as they attempt to give them appropriate captions. The poems written last year, have appeared in Borderless, Setumag and in a couple of anthologies published by Hawakal.

To Mother

I try hard to keep up 
that falsetto of hope
when we speak,
for I know that 
your heart beats  
in a balloon of anxiety.
 
I don’t tell you
how I lost out 
on the cubicle game at work 
or that I have been benched.
I let you know 
that I have transformed myself
into a consultant and 
clients with piercing eyes
carefully steal ideas
of my futuristic deals.
 
I send you links to the memes,
I put up on my newsfeed.
You wonder why there are no selfies
these days, but as you know
work from home is not 
about going places.
 
We don’t talk about the virus.
You have become a praying mantis
and are sending auric healing
to the sick and needy.
But I have grown a thick, resistant cuticle
over the past months.
 
I send you shots of the sunset,
most days and we exclaim
over the surprise of the colours.
As I walk alone in the beach
I smear my mind yellow-blue- purple.
There’s an iridescence 
that briefly holds out,
against the flickering darkness.
©2021 Geetha Ravichandran
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