Pitri Paksha (পিতৃপক্ষ)
In the fortnight of ancestors
three generations of spirits live
in my home, breathe in me
coloring dreams until the sun
moves through another equinox.
My mother lives in Delhi, in
a house I will inherit, calls
from a balcony where she is
pinching off a rosebush, dead
petals and leaves in palm,
voice diminished and jagged;
the chasm vast between us.
She asks: What happens to ALL
those souls, so many of us,
overrunning the planet now?
How will they find rebirth?
Surely some just die forever?
She is eighty-nine. A Buddhist
master said: There are two kinds
of children in this world. One
born to repay the kindness
of parents; others born to take
what their parents have.
She asks her usual questions
asks about conversations
with my siblings, my day,
my week; I am a child back
from school, my words terse.
Connectivity bars, screens
pixelate and reload. Just when
I think I have lost her, she
blooms again onscreen, hand
brimming with dead petals,
pinching leaves into earth,
mulching
new
buds.
Note: Pitri Paksha is a 16-lunar day period in the Hindu calendar when Bengalis pay homage to their ancestors.
Dipika Mukherjee’s poetry collection, Dialect of Distant Harbors, was published by CavanKerry Press in October 2022, and won the Quill and Ink Award for Poetry in 2023; it was also shortlisted for a Chicago Review of Books (CHIRBy) Award. She is the recipient of a 2022 Esteemed Artist Award from the City of Chicago and teaches at the Graham School at University of Chicago. She serves as Literary Life Ambassador for the Chicago Poetry Center.
This week, SWWIM and Matwaala are coming together to celebrate women writers of South Asian heritage with a week of poetry and a SWWIM x Matwaala writing residency and reading at The Betsy-South Beach featuring visiting writer Nina Sudhakar and local writer Carolene Kurien. (The reading will take place on September 11 at 7:00 pm. Please join us in person or via Instagram Live or Facebook Live!)
Matwaala was launched in 2015 to increase the visibility of diasporic South Asian poets (from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Afghanistan) in the mainstream American literary landscape. The name Matwaala in a transferred sense suggests the intoxication of poetic creativity. Matwaala showcases the diversity within the South Asian community—and within the Indo-American community.
A note from Matwaala: Matwaala, the South Asian Diaspora Poetry Collective, is honored to join hands with SWWIM in celebrating a week of South Asian poetry that celebrates Matwaala’s tenth anniversary. A thoughtfully curated selection of women poets offer us a constellation of rich poetry this week. Together with SWWIM, we affirm poetry’s power to bridge distances, and amplify voices.