Recipe for a Birthday Far Away from Home

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𓇢𓆸
Yellow are the leaves fallen
on the ground, shaken
off the tree – swept apart –
from their roots – they shiver,
invisibly
Yellow is the colour of memory’s
first tune, an ancient gramophone
playing in a frozen room, in the fading
light of secret longings – I look back to see
no one who is following me
Yellow are her pages, a book fallen
open, stories from one thousand
and one nights spilling from her heart –
the words, they arrive all at once, and also
too late, forgetting to bring any comfort
Yellow is the colour that’s never been known
by the green leaves of olive trees that live on
in your memories of home – but one day the sky
breaks open, alone, and all you see is bottomless
white, falling out from under a never-ending blue
Yellow is the smile of winter jasmine,
who has travelled across seas to bloom
in front of you and me, she sits in floral
dance next to her cousins, sweet oranges –
infused into the heart of a cake, we eat
We drink lemon thyme tea, and you tell me –
Yellow is the colour of a heart
that glows in the dark,
showing the way home after
the leaves have fallen, when
the tree has whispered goodbye,
in a language we can’t understand –
We drink yuzu green tea, and I tell you –
Yellow is the sun shining
the weeping roots awake, to
discover we can keep on living,
to find we can keep on growing,
even when held by the hands
of a different land – even then
                                                                     𓇢𓆸

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