The Rice Fields

                                                   Miles of them grow in my carry-on

and travel with me across continents

but the customs officers are suspicious

they eye my old suitcase and ask me to open it

                                                   Pickles? they ask sniffing deeply

prodding a packet or two

say Sure ma’am you’ve got no jeera or chilies?

(now they’ve learned the Hindi word for cumin

so the new trick is to joke with us) And one time

                                                  I saw three burly officers question

an elderly couple disheveled

as I was from 20-plus hours

of travel from Kolkata

and as disoriented (and yes

as usual all the usual “foreign” suspects

are sent along to “Agriculture”) and

they poked around in their overstuffed bags

(where some rice fields appeared but

they couldn’t see them of course) and

                                                      one officer said Duck? Bombay Duck?

or birds (The officers looked

at each other again and again:

expressions priceless) So another time I land

                                                     at Detroit airport and I shake my head

at the silver-haired officer

say Sir, no, no pickles meat or cheese

and Patel’s (give them a sweet Colgate smile)

Yes, yes, sweets, only made of lentil No dairy, no dairy

The red-gold cardboard boxes of sweets he can see

but not the rice sprouting beneath

the young green shoots

                                                 No our rice fields he will never see

                                                 we carry them wherever we go