Megha Sood (Diaspora Dual Identities)

Megha Sood

A World I Try To Belong

 

I'm trying hard to decipher

semantics of language:

breaking its syntax to fit my brown tongue

feverishly trying to mold and morph

silence around me in this land of free and brave.

 

My tongue marinated with stories of my motherland

stained with its saffron tinge of an early dawn—

my ears still ringing with the mellifluous cowbells

as they make their way to lush green fields.

 

Thick hooves stir dust as they carve their stories

Long call of muezzins --Azaan --coming out of the minarets piercing the skies,

syncopating melody of temple bells stirring our souls

long piercing hawker calls lacing thin alleys.

 

I’m still trying to find my way

trying to fit my hyphenated identity

into the thick cookie-cutter of this new world.

as I make another day in this land alone.

 

To avoid pursed lips, and taut faces devoid of emotion

as people hide behind their snarky comments

saying aloud “Go back to where you belong”

 

Like a dandelion swept away by the winds of opportunity

looking to taste the blue kindness of the sun

In this country, I now call home.

 

I know we are living in a world sitting on a pile of explosives

yet like a child, I play the stories in my head

night after night: witnessing water wrung from mother’s hair

a sacred memory as a testament of love.

 

Passed on like Panchatantra and Chandamama tales

jumping hoops for generations:

Our culture, or identity, our wounds as they shine

and catches the shine of a kind sun.

 

I teach kindness to my son as his body swells with tenderness

and hunger with time. I tell him to fill water bowls

on the balcony for birds flying south,

birds flying home.

 

I fly origami birds from my balcony

leaving a thin trail of hope:

offering them the blue kindness of the sky

to the world where I feverishly try to belong.

 

 

Joy His Face Brings

 

The slow stirring bubbling of water

in a steel gray teapot,

my first act of the day.

 

Simmering cold tap water

slowly and surely,

leads to the loud whistling

filling each silent corner of my sepia-tinged room.

 

My ears attuned to this familiar sound

that anoints my day;

the sheer joy of seeing bubbles

as it dances on the thin skin of water,

and forms a perfect moment in time.

 

A mother in a land unknown

raising a brown boy with eyes filled with wonder and intrigue,

as I mindlessly stir the spoon

to add a few pods of cardamom and cinnamon

with a few crushed Tulsi leaves.

 

My secret concoction: just the right proportion

inhaling the aroma as it brings memories of home

and I sit down with my warm cup

leaving a thin impression of its rim

on my long wooden table,

a provenance of happiness, I place I call home.

 

I can feel his soft footsteps nearing me

soft arms gently around my body

warm supple touch of his forehead

on the nape of my neck.

 

It reminds me of the bliss of being a mother

of this joyful, shining kid

after unexpectedly losing

so many to the ruthless time.

 

 

Megha Sood is an award-winning Asian-American author, poet, editor, and literary activist from New Jersey. Literary Partner with “Life in Quarantine”, at Stanford University. Her four poetry collections include the award-winning (My Body Lives Like a Threat, FlowerSong Press, 2022), (“My Body Is Not an Apology, FinishingLine Press, 2022), and (“Language of the Wound is Love, FlowerSong Press, 2025). She has received support from VONA, Pen Women, Dodge Foundation, Kundiman, and Martha’s Vineyard Writing Institute. Her 900+ works have been featured in PSNY, MS Magazine, NYPL, Pen Magazine, PBS, and WNYC Studio. Her poems and co-edited anthology “The Medusa Project” have been selected to be sent to the moon in 2025 in collaboration with NASA. https://linktr.ee/meghasood

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Setu, April 2025