Weeping Willow

Weeping Willow

The arched back of my granny, stooped as the weeping willow, is precariously picking the rice, sorting through the grain and counting her miseries, and giving it a name. Some of them thrown instantly, some tucked away knotted in the filigreed ends of her thick embroidered Kashmiri shawl she drapes in the chilly winters of the mountains to keep her warm. Slanting sun of winters makes its way through the thick bushes of the mango tree giving apricity to the tender saplings, her rose bushes, in her tenderly loved garden where each stem is pruned precariously loved gently before it turns into a boisterous flower-laden stem. Some have deep thorns, which prick her thick yellow skin leaving bloodstains when she goes. The trail of unrequited silence which she never let her wrinkled eyes leave as it smiles through the thin crows’ lines and warmth which oozes through her toothless smile.

By MEGHA SOOD

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BIOGRAPHY

Megha Sood is an Assistant Poetry Editor for the Literary Journal MookyChick and a Literary Partner with the "Life in Quarantine" Stanford University, USA. Her works are widely published in literary journals and anthologies including Better than Starbucks, Gothamist. Poetry Society of New York, WNYC Studios, Kissing Dynamite, American Writers Review, FIVE:2: ONE, Quail Bell, Dime show review, etc. Three-time State-level Winner NAMI Dara Axelrod NJ Poetry Contest 2018/2019/2020 and National Winner Spring Robinson Lit Prize 2020, Finalist in Pangolin Poetry Prize 2019, Adelaide Literary Award 2019 and Erbacce Prize 2020, Nominated for the iWomanGlobalAwrads 2020, Works selected numerous times by Jersey City Writers group and Department of Cultural Affairs for the Arts House Festival. Editor of ( "The Medusa Project, Mookychick) and ( "The Kali Project," Indie Blu(e) Press).