Why Would I Want Daffodils When I Can Have Sunflowers?

What meaning do “dadfodils” hold for a Tamil girl
whose first association with flowers was ammama’s fingers
redolent with jasmine and white cotton thread?
I know the cheerful yellow of an entire field of sunflowers,
glowing, growing on a summer’s day, more than ten thousand
at a glance.

But the English textbooks are not interested in my experiences.
They want me to appreciate woods on snowy evenings when
all I’ve ever enjoyed is the warm red oxide terrace and ghost stories
in the moonlight.

There is injustice in a language that does not reform,
that does not re-form,
that just continues.

I tell my students the rain smells better as mannvasanai or mitti,
not petrichor.

That a river sounds like an angry family confronting
star-crossed lovers.
It does not only babble or roar.

That poetry often falls short to explain
matters
of the heart and soul.

But that we still have to try.
The injustice of language is that it assumes
it knows best.

Occipital Stroke Observations at Ramzan

My father dreams in Urdu.
He asks how to read the English paper –
right to left, he starts.
Co-mmand.
ees.

After the fact, he has forgotten:
The days of the week.
The word for sugar. And water.
Where he lives. What he ate in his last meal.
The family cat and the dog.
His friends from a few years ago.
The names of his daughters.

He uses words to fill in the spaces in his speech.
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At 77, my father has discovered “appalling.”

His eight…

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