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    To My Daughter: N. Balamani Amma (B. 1909

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    Adwaith Jayakumar
    This poem is addressed from a mother to her daughter who is in the hospital. In 3 sentences, the mother encourages her daughter not to be depressed, as rest in the hospital is like a gift from the goddess to reinvigorate herself. Though her spirit and creativity may cause her pain, her ability to transform difficulties into beauty gives the mother comfort. She has faith that her daughter will continue climbing steps in life.

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    To My Daughter: N. Balamani Amma (B. 1909

    Uploaded by

    Adwaith Jayakumar
    7K views3 pages
    This poem is addressed from a mother to her daughter who is in the hospital. In 3 sentences, the mother encourages her daughter not to be depressed, as rest in the hospital is like a gift from the goddess to reinvigorate herself. Though her spirit and creativity may cause her pain, her ability to transform difficulties into beauty gives the mother comfort. She has faith that her daughter will continue climbing steps in life.

    Original Title

    All Poems 1

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    This poem is addressed from a mother to her daughter who is in the hospital. In 3 sentences, the mother encourages her daughter not to be depressed, as rest in the hospital is like a gift from the goddess to reinvigorate herself. Though her spirit and creativity may cause her pain, her ability to transform difficulties into beauty gives the mother comfort. She has faith that her daughter will continue climbing steps in life.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    7K views3 pages

    To My Daughter: N. Balamani Amma (B. 1909

    Uploaded by

    Adwaith Jayakumar
    This poem is addressed from a mother to her daughter who is in the hospital. In 3 sentences, the mother encourages her daughter not to be depressed, as rest in the hospital is like a gift from the goddess to reinvigorate herself. Though her spirit and creativity may cause her pain, her ability to transform difficulties into beauty gives the mother comfort. She has faith that her daughter will continue climbing steps in life.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    To My Daughter

    N. Balamani Amma (b. 1909

    Daughter, lying on a snow-white bed


    far away in a hospital,
    are you weaving midnight into day
    with the dark threads of pain?

    Don't be depressed.
    When we, too full of life,
    rush about too much and need rest
    the Goddess of Creation offers us a sickbed.
    Lie back, be refreshed; reinvigorate yourself.
    There are so many steps still to be climbed.

    Reading your poems in this dew-wet courtyard


    I wonder whether the spirit in you,
    which makes life blossom,
    hurt you more than the body
    that grew inside me like a flower.
    These cocoons you've spun,
    to put to sleep the worms
    gnawing at your core,
    burst open; and wings,
    jostling, fluttering, rising,
    Swarm my mind.

    Your mind may grow restless with unhappy thoughts,


    your body may be weary of household tasks
    but I have no fears for you.
    Your power to turn worms into butterflies
    comforts me.
    The Black Hen

    - by A K Ramanujan

    "It must come as leaves 

    to a tree 

    or not at all. 

    Yet it comes sometimes 

    as the black hen 

    with the red round eye 

    on the embroidery 

    stitch by stitch 

    dropped and found again

    and when it's all there 

    the black hen stares 

    with its round red eye 

    and you're afraid."


    Her Garden in finicky chaos

    by Meena Alexander in a sky so flat and blue


    that light mirrors itself

    The mountains crackle as if on water, soundlessly.

    they are full of flint,


    the cicada bristles So losing body

    ,it does not sing she crept into her own soul

    in grandmother’s garden and she slept.

    as mulberry trees As young goats leap over cracks

    gnarled like her hands in the garden walls,

    start their long slide as the cicada shunts sparks

    seawards. from its wings


    I remember her.

    I imagine her sitting


    under the mulberry leaves,
    hot fruit splashed
    to her eyes,
    a blindness cleaned
    in that solitary house
    when trees clamber
    out of bark
    and swim
    to a rock that is black
    and bare
    and like nothing
    else in this homeland.

    I like to think
    she died in the day
    her face set heavenward,
    exacting little attention
    from the sun —
    once risen it sets

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