counting blessings

by SHALINI PATTABIRAMAN

not just this grass     but 
the ants on the bark        their red shells 
burnished to a shade of rust        the woodpile 
slowly turning to smoke    a tree-lined shadow 
lingering over walls walls warm 
with your body heat and in your hand       
chunks of tender purple root    grown on land
once covered in volcanic ash a whole catfish 
simmering over coals        day leaning into dusk 
and then     our gaze meeting over the soft husk of seed
pan-roasted and broken    the fisheyes        glazed
moonlit milky cores reduced 
to this plating of love we seek from one another
over the food we serve under the light of glow worms     
the music of crickets geckos and cicadas       
we in our living how easily we   embrace the dead