Google Image: Sheuli flowers
All night, like the wish-stars
Sheulis* drop from boughs
on the soft cotton cloth,
spread, to take them to the shrine,
where sit deities with a smile.
The devotees wish on them
to have a blessed autumn
for all as Durga Ma comes home.
Like the gliding cotton cloud
I wish to sail back to childhood
to that sweet, soft home so full,
where mirth and dream bloomed.
*it’s a sweet smelling autumn flower that reminds us, the Bengalis, of the festival Durga Puja, when Goddess Durga is worshipped.
Posted for Susan’s Midweek Motif ~ Bloom (Noun) @ Poets United
sumanar/lekha 
Like the gliding cotton cloud
I wish to sail back to childhood………………
Me too, I wish same too.
” sweet, soft home so full,
where mirth and dream bloomed” …how I wish…know not how to steer the sail!!
How often I too have been “sailing back to childhood” in writing. What a great source and inspiration it is. Your poem is really beautiful Sumana.
Wonderful wish–as if the narrator wishes on all of the falling stars/flowers connecting with the mother Goddess. I send you smiles for putting this longing into words and images. May you have a blessed autumn!
Beautiful… hope I catch some of the pandals in Bangalore this year…
Thank you for taking me back to your childhood.
Perfect poem for this season. Loved reading it. I love the smell of Sheuli flowers.
This is my favourite from you Sumana 😀 an epitome of beauty this poem! ❤ ❤
This is a beautiful poem. I can imagine the fragrant offerings..to be blessed with a wonderful childhood like yours is good fortune.
I love the idea of “wish-stars” dropping onto the cloth to be taken to honour the deities. I resonate with wishing to go back to childhood. Who knew how precious it would become, in memory, as we age?
Beautiful, Sumana. 🙂
Oh to return to the innocence of childhood the way it should be, happy and carefree 🙂
Sailing back to childhood is so very hard to do – once you have set foot on adult shores it’s almost as if we can’t – and yet words perhaps take us there in some way – many blooms to you
Beautiful blooms, beautiful tradition, and beautiful description.
Ah, I think sometimes we all wish to return to childhood, but I wonder if we visited it again would it seem as good as we remember it!
What a sweet wish! And I love the idea of a smiling autumn flower. Lovely poem.
I don’t know if I want to sail back to childhood, but I might not mind sailing back a few years. I have never heard of this autumn flower. Thanks for sharing!
So beautiful Samana! I often wish that I could travel back to childhood. Just to visit for awhile…. Those flowers are lovely! I wish you a blessed Autumn my friend!
If you ever figure out a way to sail back to childhood, please let me know!
Beautiful thoughts
I’d like to sail back to childhood myself!
=)
Ahhaa! The flowers are a delight. Loved your poem Sumana. It took me through the nostalgic lanes of childhood when I too loved to pick the flowers with my grandma for her offerings. Lovely. 🙂
A lovely poem, Sumana, where the smell of the flowers and their harvest transports one to one’s childhood. There is bitter-sweet nostalgia in this…
PS: I had to go and google the sheuli flower to find out it’s a night-blooming jasmine Nyctanthes arbor-tristis! It’s beautiful.