Where do I look and what do I see?
Images, memories, faded photographs, palindromes
Synapses, flashes, fade outs, sepia, high def
Read Simulacra- what is real? What is true?
Christopher Columbus looking at waves in an endless sea
Martin Luther King and Obama before a sea of faces on the Washington Mall
Starry, starry nights filling the sky as Vincent weeps
Golden fields of goldenrod by Indiana highways
The golden fields of mustard from my perch on a bullock cart
A forty foot Krishna benignly playing his flute in Wheeling West Virginia
Ribbons of highways from the airplane window
And the symmetrical blocks of Cincinnati and New York
The intense, wise, all-knowing stare of my newborn
The eerie, sentry-like windmills on the road to Chicago
Thick threatening gray clouds lowering over my car in Kentucky
The blue-gray water of the surf as it crashed on my head on Rockaway Beach in California
The steel door that locked behind me in the rehab center where the inmates wailed.
The flash of red as a cardinal swooped into a copse of trees in my back yard
The matching red of the bus and the guard at Buckingham Palace
The lush sensuous green of the rain forest garden in Hawaii
The sparkling whiteness of snow glinting brilliantly on a Minneapolis winter morning.
The orange rust around the gunshot hole in the back of my maroon Plymouth Voyager
The faces of the cows that surrounded me in a Wisconsin pasture
The giant swan boats in Chandigarh and on the lake at Boston Commons
The mountain peaks towering above in Denver and Mussoorie
The vista of the valley from my husband’s ancestral village home.
The twinkling of thousands of fireflies in the mango orchard
Speckled garden snakes cavorting in the green grass on my front yard
The yellow streamers fluttering over the green lawn at my nephew’s wedding.
The emerald green and gold of my silk skirt as I dance at my sister’s wedding
The red and gold saris of all the Indian brides I see
The soft baby pink silk sari draped around my aunt in her coffin in Louisville
The purple hair of my teenage son as he heads to Columbus for Latin convention
The black circles around my daughter’s eyes when she was in her Goth phase
The rising green swing as my children soar in the air
Sunlight glinting off cymbals as my son plays his drums on the patio
The blue gate opening as my boyfriend comes home to propose
The golden glow of my mother’s hands as she writes her lists
Ten minutes reminiscing on a a deck chair
The wonders of life, there are so many more.
Anita Raturi 