Roots in water
Divyanka Sharma
I like how his Americanness
Touches my foreignness
He tells me of his people stuck
In a cold unforgiving land
2, 3 generations ago
Mine lived under the warm sun
Rooted in place, their history etched into native stones.
His light brown eyes shine back beyond the Atlantic
Closer to home near Lake Superior
My dark brown eyes hold in them
The waters of the Gomti, the color of the Himalayas
He tells me of the time they fled persecution
I think of mine living through calm religious tolerance
Both sides were poor
Mine genteel his lost
And I think how an American showed me
The rootedness of my heritage
An irony for an outsider
Who stripped herself off of an earth that held her name
And moved to another to float in knee deep waters
With nothing to hold on to
Touches my foreignness
He tells me of his people stuck
In a cold unforgiving land
2, 3 generations ago
Mine lived under the warm sun
Rooted in place, their history etched into native stones.
His light brown eyes shine back beyond the Atlantic
Closer to home near Lake Superior
My dark brown eyes hold in them
The waters of the Gomti, the color of the Himalayas
He tells me of the time they fled persecution
I think of mine living through calm religious tolerance
Both sides were poor
Mine genteel his lost
And I think how an American showed me
The rootedness of my heritage
An irony for an outsider
Who stripped herself off of an earth that held her name
And moved to another to float in knee deep waters
With nothing to hold on to
Divyanka Sharma loves to represent the world around her, from her native country of India to adopted home in the United States, through the magic of words. Her poetry, fiction, and thought pieces have appeared in the Grief Diaries, Making Connections magazine, Muse India, Wire.in among others. She hopes her writing can transport readers to the world she lives in and imagines. She resides in San Francisco.
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