My Grandma Poem by Uma nair

MY GRANDMA

Soft skin folding
Into wrinkled satin
Spent and shaded
By life's lilting lines

She cuts vegetables
Wafer thin slivers
Silenty falling into the urn
Waiting for coconut confetti

The steamed jackfruit
Emanates an aroma
Of an 18th century recipe
Stirred and savoured

Over tales of
Sun tinted silks
Flooding silt plains
Into dunes of memories

In her hands
Smoulders wood fired
Smoke finding ways to
Weave its way

Into the minute minutes
Of the fragrance
Of her soul
Which lives in my

Sealed spice jars
Their muted notes
Waiting in baited breath
For my ugly hands.

2015
UMA NAIR