Poetry 2017 Second Prize Asha Kuthari Chaudhuri

Kaleidoscopes
         
And the pollen falls –
Upon the petals. The bees
Hum in anticipation
There’s a feast in store!
There is a powerful symmetry
Of Time-
Of Place –
Of Interwoven Destinies
As all things
connect and collide –
to form
New patterns
New perceptions
And our sense of the world is forever
Altered.
The star-shaped stamen of a Hollyhock
The sleep-bearing pod of the Poppy
The whorl-maze of the Marigold
The eclectic, electric Larkspur
The multiplicity of messages each beauty
Within its
ephemeral existence enfolds.
The humming in your ears
Grows louder –
Perceptions are forever in flight
Resonant with ideas, materials, people
Revelatory, radical messages
That you might need to grab –
Pluck out of the shimmering air –
Or sift through the microscopic
Grains of pollen
Resting:
On the petals.