Sari
Six yards of soft wetness
soak the forenoon sun.
Cotton expanse in powder blue,
filigreed edges in faux gold,
puff like sails in sea-wind;
a voyage into endurance.
My mother’s sari is a scripture,
a flag carrying countries of household truths:
she, in bed with children,
she, scrubbing the mossy bathroom walls,
she, in kitchen,
smashing a cockroach to its end.
There’s love and violence
that only the folds of the sari know.
Now, so much depends
on the bee-loud-brilliance of the sari,
drifting in fragrant droplets into the air;
claiming its share of radiance
from farmers, weavers and men;
their curious figurines melting
into a fabric — ripe with moisture
and a million perforations.
soak the forenoon sun.
Cotton expanse in powder blue,
filigreed edges in faux gold,
puff like sails in sea-wind;
a voyage into endurance.
My mother’s sari is a scripture,
a flag carrying countries of household truths:
she, in bed with children,
she, scrubbing the mossy bathroom walls,
she, in kitchen,
smashing a cockroach to its end.
There’s love and violence
that only the folds of the sari know.
Now, so much depends
on the bee-loud-brilliance of the sari,
drifting in fragrant droplets into the air;
claiming its share of radiance
from farmers, weavers and men;
their curious figurines melting
into a fabric — ripe with moisture
and a million perforations.
Jhilam Chattaraj is an academic and poet based in India. She has authored the books, Corporate Fiction: Popular Culture and the New Writers (2018) and the poetry collection When Lovers Leave and Poetry Stays (2018). Her works have been published at Room, Queen Mob’s Tea House, Colorado Review, World Literature Today and Asian Cha among others. She received the CTI excellence award in “Literature and Soft Skills Development,” 2019, from the Council for Transforming India and the Department of Language and Culture, Government of Telangana, India.
Art: Creative Commons