In Sequoia, that orange redwood tree
Only seventeen hundred years old
Disfigured by a knurl at the base of her trunk
Brought my Grandma back to me.
She was only seventy-two
When I came bawling into her world,
She had filaria on her left foot,
She flamed as orange in the afternoon sun.
I remember her as her idols on pedestals
Meticulously arranged in order of seniority,
She was a devout Hindu, you see.
She was their beautician
With vermilion and sandalwood paste,
She fed them sweetmeats, flowers and fruit,
Her little dolls of myth and divinity.
Her stories she got a little mixed up,
Just as the Redwood are, with moss and fern,
Undergrowth creeping with demons and ogres
Hibernating in cold, twig-infested snow,
Fallen pinecones in a battlefield
In suspended animation until tomorrow.
She would rhyme to me on a hazy afternoon
Until the sun dipped quickly below her window
And then she would light her wicker lamp
To keep away gathering shadows.
My father would hang up her mosquito net,
Not servants, not mother, not aunts,
He tucked her in everyday.
She would inevitably say
‘Good boy’
And mumble off to sleep.
I dream today of tucking in
My Redwood Grandma tree. |
