Threads Across Oceans
In the quiet hum of an August morning,
the sun rises over two worlds at once—
Himalayan peaks,
and city skylines that gleam like steel prayer wheels.
A cotton thread, sacred and white,
rests in my palm like a soft river of memory.
Father’s voice recalls the old village temple,
where priests chant in the incense-thick air,
tying janai to shoulders like promises—
to truth, to compassion,
to the weight of vows carried through lifetimes.
Here, halfway across the world,
I wear mine too.
Not by a rushing Nepali stream,
but by a kitchen sink,
the turmeric bowl glowing gold like Kathmandu dawn.
Mother murmurs mantras she learned from her own mother,
while the thread circles my arm—
a bridge spun from devotion and diaspora.
Somewhere in that thin strand,
my heritage hums.
It knots the mountains to the prairies,
rice fields to asphalt streets,
the Ganga’s myth to the Hudson’s flow.
I walk into the day,
the janai warm against my skin,
a quiet tether reminding me—
I am carried by the prayers of many,
and I carry them forward,
thread by shining thread.
