Summers With My Grandmother

By Swara Ghanashyam Ajgaonkar

“i remember soft pink and vintage greens

swaying easily with the breeze

in my grandma’s garden

settling in my heart like the softest dream

her kitchen was a magician’s cave

where she would weave magic

as her silver hair would gleam

like diamonds in sunbeams

she would knead hope in times of despair

strewing in our lives, her prayers sincere

butter-like her love melting all the way

to my heart

when she would braid my hair

she hugged with the benevolence of the sun

and somehow

everything and everyone

would just grow around her

like flowers in s sunny patch in the garden

she always stirred something on the strove

but no matter what she made

it always smelled like hope

i remember the red carpet in the living room

Standing out on the dull grey floor

Where i would be sent off to

in the case I hadn’t done my homework

but the memory threatens to run black

to the black of the lion’s eyes in my

uncle’s old painting’

to the black tyre marks that would take me away

from my grandmother at the end of summer

and to a black world, devoid of her

warm presence

so my heart bleeds nostalgia

needing to believe, that my eyes can still see

a world pristine

untouched by vintage sleepy sepia filters

of the past

and my grandma waving at the fate

sending us love and blessings till we meet again.”

By Swara Ghanashyam Ajgaonkar