the sky is still sky without you. and the clouds and the bees and the flowers and the leaves. today is the first day of spring. in hindu calendar that is and i wonder at the startness of bloom being numerical. my mother covered cushions with the covers she made from old scraps. i think about a friend who frowns when told to pick flowers. i think about myself when i used to pick firangipani up (recently found that that's what it's called somewhere i don't remember and in India a variety of champa) years back from the ground where it would be fallen while walking back home from college in the evening. carry it with me in the train. its origin is allegedly from somewhere Mexico. though it's more widely spread in Asia. all the cultural and religious significance. i didn't know all this until few days back. it was the flower of this month for that magazine. it was the flower of my everyday back then. never wondered whether it missed its home. diasporic flower child. it seemed at home whether on a tree or on the street or on in my hand but having a place to fall doesn't mean having the place to fall. i can still feel its stalk tender with my sweaty hold. olfactory memory is supposed to be the strongest. i can't remember the fragrance. i remember the touch of holding. every evening moving-home.
