Mrs. RanjaniNeriya
USA
the open window listens to the rowlock’s roulade,
yawn of crows in the guava tree,
the muscled plank across the stream yawping moodily
to early feet;
I hear the windlass purr
a kittenish wheel, coir hiss a pot gurgle well-deep,
the women who dawn busy hanging out the wash
on long rejoicing clotheslines, then
to upturn the cantilevered scythe moored on a board of teak
scrape fresh coconut and cut greens
a fizz of bees coming in from the sugarcane field
slathers the honeysuckled porch
as I sip the wood-fire brewed muslin-strained coffee sweetened light with jaggery
it happens, this sudden emptying of a life I never lived
the only one I had. .