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.