Planting the Rice Field
the geometry is the simple
series of patterns my father felt
(an ocean squared
the orchard's perspective)
bent in repose
containing the
connecting the
grains as they murmur up
to the surface
screen like a vision
of another country
to feel
in angles
each urge
things seen under a greater angle
appear greater under a lesser angle
less under equal
angles appear equal
urgent, try to
know when
to fit
Sibani Sen teaches creative writing and South Asian history. She has a PhD in Indology from Harvard University and an MFA from Boston University. Her current projects include forthcoming new poetry, a translation of an eighteenth-century epic from Sanskrit, Persian and Bengali, and a monograph on the Indian pre-modern poet Bharatchandra.