NATASHA KOCHICHERIL MONI
  • Home
  • Bio
  • Books
  • Readings
  • Publications
  • Hire Natasha
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Links
  • Home
  • Bio
  • Books
  • Readings
  • Publications
  • Hire Natasha
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Links

Day 17, Poet 17: Linda Ashok

4/17/2018

 
Picture

When You Talk About a Dead Deer
                                                      For Kelli Russell Agodon
 
The buds in my garden respond to such grief with a refusal to
open  up  their  petals  in   full  light.  Air,  dank  with  sorrow,
makes  my garden smell like a  cemetery. Ghosts juggle in the

bath under feet and I can only hear a trombone, a devastating
note grafted by the wind on my broken cello still living with a
heart  and  two  kidneys.  The  flowers  in  my  garden  (once a
forest till my last lover made me this tomb of four walls here
to beat the snow and reach the last breath with as less anguish
for death possible)  were  untamable, they chased the deer and
the lost  alike.  The  lost  dropped one  by  one,  so  did the deer.
Grief stilled  their  bloom  until my wild hands relieved them of
the guilt, and they became tamer.  When you talk about a  dead
deer, it reminds  me of the builder of my nest  who  sailed tons
of  musk pods down  the  Yangtse  to a bustling metropolis and
wondered how someone's horror,  someone's pain can be sold
for money.  He then died here, in redemption,  and in his body
was impermanence sculpted of regret,  of a lifetime measured
by dead deer.



Previously published in Crab Orchard Review. This poem was written after reading Kelli Russell Agodon's "Hunter's Moon", which may be read here. 


Author of Whorelight, Linda Ashok is the 2017 Charles Wallace India Fellow in Creative Writing (Poetry) at the University of Chichester, UK. Linda’s  poems and reviews have appeared/forthcoming  in several publications, online and in print, including Crab Orchard Review, The Common, The McNeese Review, Poetry Kanto, Friends Journal, Axolotl, Skylight 47, The Big Bridge Anthology of Contemporary Indian Poets, Mascara Literary Review, The Rumpus and others. Linda is the Founder/President of RædLeaf Foundation for Poetry & Allied Arts (2012) and sponsors the annual RL Poetry Award (since 2013). More at: lindaashok.com

Comments are closed.

    Blog Host

    Natasha Kochicheril Moni is a writer and a licensed naturopath in WA State. Enjoying this blog? Feel free to put a little coffee in Natasha's cup, right here. 

    Archives

    October 2019
    August 2019
    March 2019
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    May 2016
    March 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014

    Categories

    All
    AWP 2016
    LA Story
    Poetry
    Steve Martin
    Two Sylvias Press

    RSS Feed