Skip to main content

Summer

My apologies for not being consistent about my posts! Truth be told, I haven't written or created any art in some time; so, instead, I will share a poem I wrote when I first moved to Chicago last August. I was walking through Lincoln Park in the afternoon, feeling homesick and keeping to the shade, when I, just for a few moments, felt like my senses were on fire. All the sounds in the park were magnified, the path on which I was walking got brighter, and I got such a strange heady feeling that I sat down on the nearest bench. Here's what came of it:

~Home~

In a new place, I find remnants
of my home.
Humid, warm air soaks my armpits
and my brow as I walk
in a shady park.
The crickets and cicadas cry out tirelessly,
"We are! We are!"
We are life.
We are beauty.
We are one.
Miraculous trees in
Urban outer space ground me
To the earth, root me
In place
I am home wherever I find my memories.
I am home.

~Poonam Desai (8/16/2010)

Lincoln Park/ Urban Oasis (P. Desai, 8/18/10)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Now Brown Cow?

No one ever says brown is their favorite color- it's not bright, it's not vibrant, and it's not very beautiful. It is earthy. It is natural. It is skin, soil, butterfly wing, and death. It is, perhaps the deepest color of the earth, as well as the most elevated. How 'bout them brown apples? ~Brown~   What are you that brings sweat to men's brows as they tear you apart, reaping and forcing you to give for centuries? You thirst for the rain, sweet martyr,  while they thirst for your very last fruit. What are you that men will kill thousands of their brethren, holding you hostage along with their own brothers? You must quietly drink the blood they have spilled, weeping silently as they mar your skin with shallow mines. What are you that an exile longs to crawl back to your warm womb rather than seek riches elsewhere?  He will lower his lips in a fervor of final peace as he kisses that which can be his only home. What are you that men shamelessly use you for thei...
3 comments
Read more

This Poem Doesn't Help the Hungry

Friends, I am constantly in awe (read: shock) of our ability to acquire, to possess, and to surround ourselves by things. I am also constantly torn between my own egotistical desire to own things and my higher desire to minimize, simplify, and become unattached. In another lifetime, perhaps I could live as a monk would, with few possessions and few earthly needs beyond basic sustenance. For now, I am still drawn to mindless entertainment and material acquisitions. Still, I offer my dream, my ~Two Cents~ Perhaps I've no right to speak Having been born in the spring of life Grown up in the summer And never having known a fall or winter, But I find it ever so strange how we do What we do with a face of false confidence of quiet hibernation And march like ants toward our certainties without even being able to look them in the face. For our brood we acquire ever larger houses Stock them full of trinkets and comforts. Things we may never use in our life times ... just...
2 comments
Read more

Running in the Rain

Friends, What exhilarates you? What brings a fresh, blooming smile to your face? There are so many things I love in this world: cooking, hiking, painting, reading... but also rain! Rain has this amazing capacity to brighten my face and invigorate me, much like it does to the ashy trees that line a street, which suddenly turn vibrant green after a storm. I used to "shower" in the rain when I was little; and let's face it, if I had my own backyard, I probably still would. It was wonderful- feeling cleansed by nature's own bath. Once I climbed on top of my parents' brick mailbox and sat through an entire storm. I watched the birds fly frantically to find shelter, I heard the hot humming of Texas insects cool in the moist, chilly air. I saw sky darken, the lightning crack in the deep gray air, and felt the rolls of thunder reverberate through me. The sky opened and I was SOAKED from head to toe, just like the rest of my street. The pounding rain quickened and then ...
2 comments
Read more