Ancestry

A grand-aunt wrote poems
in chaste Bangla, in praise of Kali.
They call her Bhairavi,
an ascetic, devoted
to the mother goddess.
Clad in her flaming red garments
she would make meteoric
appearances at family occasions
and string words into elegant
patterns that would awe people
like the rosary strung around her neck.
My ancestral home in the red lateritic
plains, where wandering minstrels
sing soulfully, and life moves slow
like the dripping date juice
from which they brew liquor.
I've never been there, where one half
of my genetic antecedents lived
contented lives, and some wrote passionately.
I have no command over meter,
no faith in the mother goddess,
and my fingers lazy with the mother tongue
what would the Bhairavi think of me?
I should like to meet her nonetheless.