I don’t know why i don’t have much to say to you. Perhaps its because you walk lightly. Or at least i think you do. And it can’t be anything I’ve given to you. Your mother is a stumbler.
• You are my belly laugh. You are the mischief I’ve never done. You are the pizzassubwaysicecreamsgoladosa i was greedy for and never asked. There is pleasure in your avidity. Thank God you ask. Thank god you (can) ask.
• You are my pillow. You are the bubble. My sunrises. You still fit in my arms for a cuddle. In my nonsensical life–and you know how nonsensical our lives are–you are my only unnonsensical. I’m so glad you are.
• I soar with you. I shadowride you. Whenever you come up for air, it will be me you’ll see. Rooting. Rooting for you. I pleasure in your balanced nonchalance. I’m the wistfulness in your devilmaygive. I’m the wannabe when you ease into a conversation. You are my brave. I am vindicated when you are uninhibited.
• There are mazes in this world, my baby. The branches of trees, the filigree of roots, the matrix of crystals, the lanes and bylanes. The circles we move in, the twists in conversations, the stories we spin. But you. You find a way. It’s usually straightforward.
So my darling, you are the child i could have been. I look at you in wonder. I have no poetry for you. I have no poetry for you.
(For my son who said to me yesterday, “What is this daughter, daughter! Where is the son poetry?”)
~ Vinitha, Day 24, twenty-four days of writing poetry
