Mysore Trumpetvine

A native to southern tropical India grows now on an earth far far away. One wonders how were the hands that carried these roots across seven seas, that brought these blooms back to a native in a foreign land, to a migrant in a native land, in a foreign land.

How silly our words are, how fragile our definitions.

How mysterious this breeze is, how mysterious the volcano rising that no one seems to be too worried about.

This piece of native earth I walk on now was bought for fifty dollars. This entire forest of yellow red trumpetvines was bought for fifty dollars.

The clocks, the telescopes, the water filters were built before this sale without scientists, without artists. The stars, the witchcraft, the horn of the unicorn were all ours before this sale. After this sale, we have repeatedly recited our poems staring at the same mirror.

Now, I have removed all my clothes. I have rolled my bare body on the black earth of the thick forest. I have smelled the flower not belonging to this land or the other, not growing in the present or the past, not the future.

V Paliwal

Vpaliwal