A journal of art + literature engaging with nature, culture, the environment & ecology

Two poems by Tara Menon

Tara Menon, India-USA

 

The Running Bamboo Trees Talk Back

 

We spread green

when other trees’ branches are lean.

They call us invasive,

but it’s the critics who are abrasive.

We were planted here.

Yes, we proliferate, but we spread cheer

in bitter winter’s white domain

where everything looks the same.

Memory 

Memory is the flip side of karma.

Memory is what we possess in the womb 

until the Goddess extracts a promise 

from the unborn to behave.

 

Memory belongs to flora, fauna. 

Memory is scattered in seeds.

Memory pulses in stems, veins.

Memory is woven into feathers.

Memory is ossified in bones.

Memory is mine,

memory is yours,

memory is ours.

 

Memory has ghostly wings

that flap in haunting rhythms.

Memory is a bird,

flitting, revisiting.

Memory is a stone

that is silent and unmoving.

Memory is a river,

flowing where it will.

 

Memory is all we creatures 

have in the end.

Memory is everything,

everywhere, in the air.

Memory is ephemeral.

Memory is eternal.

 

Tara Menon is a freelance writer based in Lexington, Massachusetts. Her recent poetry has been published in the following journals and anthologies: American Writers Review, Don’t Die Press, The Decolonial Passage, Emrys Online Journal, Indolent Books, Wards Literary Journal, Art in the Time of Covid-19, The Inquisitive Eater, and Infection House. Her latest fiction has appeared in Litro, The Bookends Review, Rio Grande Review, and The Evening Street Review. Menon is also a book reviewer and essayist whose pieces have appeared in journals like Green Mountains Review, The Kenyon Review, Fjords Review, and Calyx.

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