They turn toward the window at every opportunity
to bask in the rare sun in this damp climate.

The money tree Amrita asked me to tend is now tall
always leaning toward light, and the smaller plants follow

teaching me to look at brightness when darkness falls
in fat bundles bringing with it the garbage of the cosmos,

the wicked slice of our imagination that can build a bomb
vying with the expert sprouting of gardens in the desert.

The geranium has grown dispirited, barely putting out a flower
or two all year, but she persists in growing her train of stems

snaking all the way down the pot and curling on the wood floor
around the feet of the ivory etched peg table.

Like the monstera and the curry leaf plant that always look
toward the window, I am learning to simply be.

They grow, wait for leaves to sprout when they will,
the sun, their cheer leader.

My garden says, Stay put to move mountains,
mastering the Tao: know better, and not know.

Pramila Venkateswaran, poet laureate of Suffolk County, Long Island (2013-15) and co-director of Matwaala: South Asian Diaspora Poetry Festival, is the author of We Are Not a Museum (Finishing Line Press 2022), winner of New York Book Festival award. Her recently released books are Exile is Not a Foreign Word (Copper Coin 2024) and Tamil Dalit Feminist Poetics (Rowman & Littlefield 2024).