today, but all she found in her mouth were some stale

ashes. She is going to drink some water and turn on some

ragas. She’s hoping you are doing something like

this too to take away the ashes and fill your rooms
with

beauty, sounds.
 On that day ten years ago, she was feeding her son

applesauce for the first time when the tower was spewing

smoke. She bought a basket of Cortlands yesterday.

I think she’s going to make an apple pie.

The same images keep coming back. The branching of trees, the dendritic flow, the axons of nerves, bronchii. I lost a contact in my eye the other day, and the redness of my own hunting for it was the same branching out, the same flow. And now the sun is rising in front of me as I type, and its rays seem to extend on and on.

When I read poetry, the flatness of mundane experience fades. The beginning and the end separate from each other and find places for themselves. Growth. Like the spring flowers and the new leaves.

I finished putting together the manuscript of my first poetry collection last month. I was motivated to finish it because I had a new idea for a long sequence that I wanted to pursue. So, I’ve put the goddess sequence to rest, though I am still editing it and getting some reviewers comments. The new work is called Savasana Dreams. Here’s a poem I wrote a while ago that has become a jumping-off point for my current writing. Enjoy!

Lying Not So Still

Lying awake

in the morning

waiting for

a decent hour

to get up

and wash

my hair

of the dreams

that poured oil

into it.

I feel drowsy

but restless

as a clacking

ceiling fan

around and around

the same thoughts

same rhythm

but wobbling

with each second

or third rotation.

I know I won’t

go flying off

in some new

direction

while I lie here

silently

breathing

in the dark

listening

to the fan

and myself

arguing pointlessly

with myself.

Winter, how do we love thee?

The icicles are getting long. The roads are narrow today because of the huge banks of snow extending into the street. I love this wintery white. The ice is lovely, like dripping crystals all along the edges of the houses. It looks like a painting.

I was wishing I could paint pictures the other day, so I worked on some construction paper with my two-year-old, making broad strokes with washable paint. And when it dried, the thick globs at the edges of the strokes were dark and intentional. Using the brushes and the paint was magnificent. I love the feeling of moving liquid color over a piece of paper. I guess I do that in poetry, too. The words flow in particular ways. The pictures I made were very close to what I have been trying in the poems about yoga. There is a swish of movement within each stroke, and the dark outlines are like the pose of the body in each asana, the particular position of hands, legs, shoulders. Here’s one of my favorites from my series on yoga.

Yearning

I reach up and try to embrace You
in this space between asanas.
My arms form a circle and
when my hands meet,
You are not inside the circle of my arms.
Only an armload of jasmine blossoms
which fall through and onto the floor and mat
where I stand.

What is the point then, of these jasmine flowers
on my feet? I want You, and You give me flowers instead.
When I sit down on my mat, I put my hands
on my knees in the two-finger circle mudra,
and breathe this fragrance into my chest.

I wonder when You will come to me.
My face to Yours, instead of Your flowers
around my legs.

Then shavasana, I lie down in the petals.
My limbs grow heavy, and I close my eyes.
My breath is missing. I notice nothing.
Now You?

College Hall, Vermont College of Fine Arts

I wrote a lot more about snow while I was in Vermont last week. This was the second residency of my MFA work. I took lots of notes in the lectures again this time, but instead of leaving them all on my shelf as soon as I came home, I leafed through the notes and jotted down all of the sentences with exclamation points at the end. I put them all on one sheet of paper, which I tore out of the back of my notebook. I also wrote down the sentences I had underlined. They all fit on one page. I hung it above my desk, where I am staring up now, for divine inspiration. Except it is coming from Vermont College of Fine Arts. I wrote things like “Make a poem!” and “compassion for our earlier selves!” Also, “unanswerable questions!” “image!” and my favorite, “When people believe in boundaries, they become a part of them!”

So poems. And becoming boundary-less. And another poem about snow…

Sonnet 3
By A. Anupama

When you snowed, you snowed hard.
The wind blew across my ears, whistling loud.
The drifts and dimmed lights confirmed how far
your passion could go, and I made no sound.
The blizzard passed, and the heavy snow lay
covering all in pure white, a sight of bright
love, complete, and joined to white play,
snowballs, drift slides, sledding, skis and delight.
I walked with you in the snow, sometimes
in drifts past my knees, cold pinching my cheeks,
and when I looked for words to say to your rhymes
my mouth hid behind my scarf. Lips seek
but they take time. The snow turns to slush
then melts to water, rippling you, and I say hush.