The Still Life From Me Poem by Gayathri Seetharam

The Still Life from me
-Gayathri B. Seetharam
Acknowledgements: A poem in The New York Times magazine by Mark Sanders

I toast a glass of port to the 25,000 Syrian immigrants
Who were flown into Canada by PM Justin Trudeau in very early 2016
The port is as red as their blood
Which flowed freely through their veins
In a rush of freedom
And as free as the air that they breathe in Canada
There is a daisy next to the glass of port which symbolizes
The freshness of hope
In the hearts of the immigrants
For a new life, a life full of fruits of their labour
There are grapes which speak of the
Greenness of their mission to succeed
And carve out successful lives for themselves;

Only the year on the bottle of port,1994,
Is a dead giveaway
To the fact that my husband and I entered Toronto in Canada from Phoenix in the USA
Full of hope in our hearts
And ambition in our minds
Red was the colour of our passion to succeed
As is the cloth that flows with studied grace
Showing the "wrinkles of time"
The stem of the glass looks beckoningly
At its viewer who is overcome by emotion
That he or she has drunk from the glass
The same ambrosia of the vivacity of life,
The petals of the flowers bespeak of the chapters in our lives
And the bunch of grapes must
Symbolize the seeds of hope which
Brought us a softness in our lives
With a texture of love and desire and success
I look at my painting in our foyer and ponder
For yonder in the living room,
Is the Christmas tree in our Hindu home
Opening out with the leaves rustling
In the quietness of my heart
And the stillness in my soul.