Floating Time

Long gone are the days. Early dawn in the village starts with the morning prayer march, chanting aloud and making the air soothingly vibrant. My grandma sprinkles cow-dung water on the narrow path in front of our house to make it clean.

She takes a handful of chalk powder and draws floor art (Jhoti Chita)  designs that closely resemble the modern nuclear logo marker and other geometrical outlines, so pristine and perfect. Indeed it is a great artistic display like an embroidery! I patiently observe, afterwards, she holds my hand and takes me back to the house. We used to have early baths in the village pond and she worships the morning sun offering water from the copper container.

In the breakfast, she offers me sweet potatoes roasted overnight in the burnt remnant ashes of the mud chulha (clay stove). Later she sits with me for lessons and listens to how I read loudly, and often she corrects in between. When I ask out of fun, she smiles and says she has never attended school.

floating clouds

with no support

the sky holding

carefully in her womb

the tiny drops of tender rains

CHO, April issue 2025 (Ed. Tish Davis)