Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • Poetry
    • Poets
    • Poems
    • Makar – National Poet
      • Our Waking Breath: A Poem-letter from Scotland to Ukraine
      • A Woman’s A Woman
      • The story of the Makar – National Poet of Scotland
    • Best Scottish Poems
    • Spiorad an Àite
      Spirit of Place
    • The Trysting Thorns
    • Poetry Ambassadors
      Tosgairean na Bàrdachd
      • Poetry Commissions: Walter Scott 250
        Coimiseanan Bàrdachd: Walter Scott 250
      • Poetry Ambassadors 2021
    • Poetry Ambassadors 2020
    • Posters
    • Podcasts
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • SQA set texts
    • Learning resources
    • Designing sensory poetry activities
    • Children’s poems in Scots
    • National Poetry Day archive
    • New to poetry?
    • Advice for poets
  • Events
    • What’s On
    • Meeting rooms and venue hire
    • Exhibitions
  • Shop
    • Poetry Highlights
    • Entropie Books
    • Stichill Marigold Press
    • Poems for Doctors, Nurses & Teachers
    • Scottish Poetry
    • Poetry Pamphlet Cards
    • Help
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Jobs
    • Company Papers & Policies
    • Our projects
    • Our building
    • FAQs
    • Find us
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poetry
  • >
  • Tishani Doshi
  • >
  • Homecoming
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

Homecoming

Tishani Doshi

I forgot how Madras loves noise
Loves neighbours and pregnant women
And Gods and babies

And Brahmins who rise
Like fire hymns to sear the air
With habitual earthquakes.

How funeral processions clatter
Down streets with drums and rose-petals,
Dancing death into deafness.

How vendors and cats make noises
Of love on bedroom walls and alleyways
Of night, operatic and dark.

How cars in reverse sing Jingle Bells
And scooters have larynxes of lorries.
How even colour can never be quiet.

How fisherwomen in screaming red
With skirts and incandescent third eyes
And bangles like rasping planets

And Tamil women on their morning walks
In saris and jasmine and trainers
Can shred the day and all its skinny silences.

I forgot how a man dying under the body
Of a tattered boat can ask for promises;
How they can be as soundless as the sea

On a wounded day, altering the ground
Of the earth as simply as the sun filtering through
The monsoon rain dividing everything.


Tishani Doshi

from Countries of the Body (London: Aark Arts, 2006), first published in Atlas (London: Aark Arts, 2003)

Reproduced by kind permission of the publisher.

Tags:

ceremony cities culture everyday life Hinduism India rain

About this poem

This poem is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.

Share this
Facebook
Twitter
Email

Learn more

Tishani Doshi

More about Tishani Doshi

Newsletter

Sign up for our regular email newsletter.
Subscribe now

Podcasts

Our audio programme of poets, poems and news for you to listen to.
Listen Now
  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2022.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
Scottish Poetry Library