07/02/2018 Roopa Ramamoorthi
Roopa is a biotech scientist and poet who grew up in India and calls Berkeley home. She was a finalist for the National Poetry Series in 2011 and her work has appeared in the anthologies, 'She is Such a Geek', 'Dismantle' and 'Red Skirt Blue Jeans' and on Perspectives on NPR and in India Currents, Berkeley Daily Planet, Khabar, Ursa Minor, Spectrum and other venues.
Family Tree
By Roopa Ramamoorthi
Few weeks ago I spent two days in Mendocino
tucked away on California’s northern coast
Heard the waves lashing the rocks, saw a red-breasted robin
ready to take flight, a young seal on the rocks
sunning itself, then setting out for a swim
When I hiked in fern canyon
I touched the trunk
Of one sturdy redwood tree
Climbing the narrow trails, inhaling the misty air
I saw nobody else out there this Tuesday
Only those ancient pteridophytes
Layers upon layers of green
Beckoning and bewitching from the other side of time
I descended back to pygmy forest
Nature’s bonsai of acorn and cypress
Stunted trees adapted to the saline soil
five hundred thousand years old
The landscape here became more stark, less serene
I stood transported to a different tree, a different time
A photocopy in charcoal black, empty white and shades of gray
From five full years ago. It could have been
a Japanese artist’s ink brush drawing
A single tree standing on a winter’s night, severe and still
Or a botanist’s sketch of a new species
with nodules narrowing four branches
But no, it was my mother’s arteries
Captured from her angiography
In Jaslok hospital, Mumbai
soon after her heart attack
I took that image—consulted cardiologists
In Palo Alto and San Francisco
A month later she became ashes sprinkled in the Godavari River
Traveling to where the Arabian sea kisses the star-studded sky
Becoming engulfed in the universe’s eternal canopy
A black and white sketch that still breathes in a cardboard box of mine
Along with the torn black book of her recipes and her childhood photos
One of her sitting in her chubby frock at one
Another of her watering young saplings
as a girl of eleven
One more at twenty-four
Holding her newborn baby
standing next to a budding jasmine tree
This poem was published in http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-12-23/article/31888?headline=Family-Tree
Family Tree
By Roopa Ramamoorthi
Few weeks ago I spent two days in Mendocino
tucked away on California’s northern coast
Heard the waves lashing the rocks, saw a red-breasted robin
ready to take flight, a young seal on the rocks
sunning itself, then setting out for a swim
When I hiked in fern canyon
I touched the trunk
Of one sturdy redwood tree
Climbing the narrow trails, inhaling the misty air
I saw nobody else out there this Tuesday
Only those ancient pteridophytes
Layers upon layers of green
Beckoning and bewitching from the other side of time
I descended back to pygmy forest
Nature’s bonsai of acorn and cypress
Stunted trees adapted to the saline soil
five hundred thousand years old
The landscape here became more stark, less serene
I stood transported to a different tree, a different time
A photocopy in charcoal black, empty white and shades of gray
From five full years ago. It could have been
a Japanese artist’s ink brush drawing
A single tree standing on a winter’s night, severe and still
Or a botanist’s sketch of a new species
with nodules narrowing four branches
But no, it was my mother’s arteries
Captured from her angiography
In Jaslok hospital, Mumbai
soon after her heart attack
I took that image—consulted cardiologists
In Palo Alto and San Francisco
A month later she became ashes sprinkled in the Godavari River
Traveling to where the Arabian sea kisses the star-studded sky
Becoming engulfed in the universe’s eternal canopy
A black and white sketch that still breathes in a cardboard box of mine
Along with the torn black book of her recipes and her childhood photos
One of her sitting in her chubby frock at one
Another of her watering young saplings
as a girl of eleven
One more at twenty-four
Holding her newborn baby
standing next to a budding jasmine tree
This poem was published in http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-12-23/article/31888?headline=Family-Tree
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