September 2024
Lakshmi Narayanan
elenmpn@gmail.com
elenmpn@gmail.com
Bio Note: I read poetry every day. I write poems/short pieces when the stars align but mostly I'm a nomadic grandmother. I have had a few published - in Under the Gum Tree, Third Wednesday, Calliope. I loved the words that described Verse-Virtual -' community', 'kindness', 'care', 'friendship'. Hence submitting a couple of summery poems for September.
An August Afternoon
Dedicated to Michelle Regalado Deatrick
who has lovingly nurtured an 80 acre farm
and its native prairie in southeastern Michigan
A sweltering breeze
does not belong under an apple tree
It’s meant to swing palm fronds
on a seashore in Southern India
bringing the monsoon rain with it …
Yet, here it is, coaxing me outside
to the chairs under a hundred year old
apple tree overlooking a kettle pond that’s
blushing with switch grass and rose milkweed
This breeze is meant to carry
the heady fragrance of jasmine
garlands on dark hair …
But it meanders across the prairie,
mildly scented with bergamot
It’s meant to fill my vision with the
brightest hues of the reds and yellows
of tropical flowers …
Instead, I look up and learn apple green
I should be drowning in the clamor of
car horns blaring, vendors hawking, dogs barking,
in a big city by the ocean …
Yet here I am, immersed in the sound of
an occasional apple falling on soft grass
between intervals of quiet
Letter from a Wandering Daughter
So tuned am I, dear Earthmother, to your modest green
cover in Michigan that I ogle you blushingly in New Mexico
where you are often dressed in the bare
minimum shade of sand, polka-dotted with sagebrush
At times you don nothing but flowing scarves of rust and peach
Except from Cloudcroft to Sunspot when you hide
under coats of pine that keep away the chills of altitude
Soon after, you dance in a wispy bridal gown of white sands
with its train tapering into the naked black rocks of lava beds
Each time I see a ribbon of green I stop to cool
my feet in the hidden streams that trickle down your back
And not once do I see you step out without
your dazzling headdress of a spacious sun-swept sky
Enchanted, I remain, your wandering daughter
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL