Avocado, Banana, Clementine
My poetry lives in the face of
BabyJaan, whose eyes light up
at seeing my face on the phone.
A voice inside me ventures:
How did you think yourself a poet
before you became Nani Abuela?
Was there life before this child
this time last year?
I am ba-ba one week, ya-ya
the next, my name ever changing
with newly mastered consonants.
Folding and unfolding rugs five
times her size, she is relentless
in her pursuit of playful learning.
Park, beach, giant bed are playgrounds.
Play that song again, panm panm.
She wants to hear the credits theme
from Star Trek: The Next Generation,
sitting mesmerized, single focus,
eyes locked with the a cappella
singer doing all the sound effects.
She listens to it a dozen times daily.
Humming, tapping, moving.
The harbinger of a new generation.
Walking with bags, books, ducky
most as big as her entire body,
infant crawl giving way to steady
toddler walking to dancing
all within days. How can this be?
Wasn’t she just born a year ago?
Music lives in her, she is magic.
She grows inches within days.
Fill up on fruits, beans, veggies.
Oatmeal, hummus, cous cous
noodles, bread, pasta.
Hasta la vista, baby, when
she’s done, over the edge they
go to feed the canine crew.
Eating with her is a celebration.
What are words to the poetry of her being?
Poetry no longer lives inside me.
It is all prose, closer to the day
I can hold BabyJaan without the
fear that one of us will infect the
other with corona virus instead of
the love that overflows in my heart.
© Jk Mansi 2020
