Why Poetry?
by Kandala Singh
Because every song begins within the body. Because marigolds adorn us on Diwali, shaadis,
& in death. Because flowers are what I know & their shredding. Because each petal & leaf
I study reminds me of God, my father, his palms pressed against my skull.
Because every time I tell a story, it begins & ends with thorns. Because my parents were once
Gods. Because I have a deep love for mud & earth. Because “Ramallah” has the words
“Ram” and “Allah” in it, & everything sacred has a bomb set loose on it. Because I pick
the marigold each time—plain, unadorned, of the earth. Because home is far away,
& I must write to keep it close. Because a lifetime is what it takes to walk a city into our bones.
Because even then—especially then—the sky can break and destroy every shrine
you love. Because even the hardy marigold dies with too much heat & sun. Because the world
is a series of snapped flower stems—carcasses littering sidewalks. Because even bruised
& purple & bleeding—I loved my father. Because, look—this rubble, this sidewalk,
this bloom that insists on growing through the cracks.
Kandala Singh is a writer and researcher from New Delhi, currently based in Pittsburgh. She is a graduate of the MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) at the University of Pittsburgh, where she was a Dietrich fellow. Her writing has also received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and Community of Writers. Her poems appear in Rattle, Frontier Poetry, Southeast Review, and Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English, among other places. You can find her chasing clouds, flowers, and poems at https://www.kandalasingh.com.
Photo by Julia Kwiek on Unsplash