DAY 1: "The Origin of Labels"

April may be the cruelest month. It is also "National Poetry Month". Poetic Asides with Robert Lee Brewer got started at April PAD Challenge: Day 1 on April 1. I quote the prompt: "For today's prompt, I want you to write an origin poem. It can be the origin of a word, person, plant, idea, etc. Have fun with it."

Will you write a poem every day this month? Blogger friend Tikuli is writing.

This was my contribution to the first day of poetry.

DAY 1: "The Origin of Labels"

My parents came from a
Place where people drank
Tea poured on saucers, slurped
Really loudly, spat paan
Also said, “coming” while going away
They were from a soil that slept
Intently at the feet of lotus leaves
Bloated with certain delusions
About belonging to histories

Not exactly the vision
Anyone would like, much less my parents

When I was born,
Temple bells tolled and
Cymbals clanged
As usual, not for me,
Matched with nimble steps
That fell in the city
Of the Eastern Star
Where I was born, when the sun
Went very far westwards
Along the path traced by blue
Mountains of elephant-
Hue and shade

Years later I stood under a sheathed sky
Bequeathed with heat, dust and spent romance
Went further into its deep belly of roadside hustle
The bustle and sale of smiles, tears for ten bucks a piece
Not known to dolphins and ducks, only rude
Men who stood tall, really tall and gaunt, bluish cheeks
Crazy-faced, yet they offered me 'ladies' seats in crowded buses

Now I haven’t stopped plucking flowers of yesteryears
Where no one's seen jackfruits or mangoes
Also what I’ve been wearing is a peeling skin
Jackfruit-hard or mango-soft, craving to stick upon
Tongues wafting in a generous gait
In another Ithaca of new myths
Reciting from our birth charts and rooting for stars

Beckoning
Telling
Who we are
And such things.

Image from the Internet; Tintorretto's "The Origin of The Milky Way"