Ancestral Alchemy
A poem by Saraswati Nagpal
A hundred voices travel through time
and blood,
through many wombs,
to hum the wordless tune on my lips
that dances on the kitchen walls.
It is grandmother’s eye that measures
the cumin
And her mother’s hand that sprinkles the salt
Her mother’s mother stirs the lentils
Her mother slits the red chilli
and remembers the scent of fresh coriander
in-utero.
With my fingers, she
sifts rice
With my fists, she
kneads dough
And when the red onions are sliced,
it is my eyes from which
my mother’s tears flow.
Ancestral Alchemy was first published in Cathexis Northwest Press, 2019
“My preoccupation with female bloodlines, my interest in lost female rites and traditions, and the memory of my late grandmother’s voice instructing me in the kitchen, all came together to make this poem. I was on the West Coast of South Africa, on a winter’s afternoon, prepping a warm, spicy meal when the realization struck that every woman in my bloodline had probably spiced the lentil soup in exactly the same way for generations in Sindh, in Punjab, in Delhi, Mumbai, and all the cities in the world where this bloodline has traveled. The act of cooking on that afternoon became a timeless bridge between myself and my great-great-great grandmother and all the women between us.”
