January-born
January-born
Jeri Jones Sparks
I’m homesick for the ancient ritual
to slide an x under a plump cluster of jasmine blossoms
with hairpins and make a crescent on my crown, inhaling
மல்லிகை fragrance melding, with coconut-oiled black hair
but I don’t stumble upon the kinds of markets in Sydney
where I can bargain a cheeky price for the delicately woven
jasmine needles of my favourite Decembers, and anyway
my hair is cut pixie now, adjusted for all the strands my scalp
lost, alopecia, long-term stress absorbed too long to bear
a brief luxury: blossoms in cotton knots
My childhood smells like stars: jasmine and anise
mixed in with everything in the aluminium spice dabba
I drive away in my car from that childhood home with clothes
that hold the aroma from stovetop sizzled masalas within their fibres
the same way the muggy mess I absorbed holds within my own, tethered
to lavish love that I want to cherish and hold on for dear ones
After all, I am January-born, I don’t mind muggy days
But I’ve fallen in love with Spring
every September sacred since, I understood
it’s when He puts on rubber gloves for a deep cleaning
the season we feel most hopeful and ready, the most
unclutching, I feel him warming my goosebump skin when
I ask Him questions that I’m scared for Him to answer
a reassuring touch: like when my GP lay her brown hand
on mine, “we will find you the help you need
together” she answers, so kindly
her eyes crinkling and sure
He, Divine, washes my clothes by the springs
wide-eyed, when I notice what He is doing for me
slowly we, peer inside the amber bottle I’m gripping
we sigh, it becomes clear that soured milk doesn’t belong
here, we distinguish between heart notes and base
filter out unclarified clumps before you bottle the ghee
After all, I am January-born, let it be new again
But everything is becoming lighter, this November
I walk onto the church grounds and see the garden bed
in overflow, star jasmine pouring over the brim like tears
it was barren last year, but “these suckers are so tough
they grow back even when trampled,” the gardener delights
they smell wild: fresh and insistent, familiar and bold
like hearing my mother tongue spoken on the train, where
I didn’t expect to stumble upon something so glorious:
a garland garden, now sprung up from the Giver.
Jeri Jones Sparks
Poet & Pastor
Jeri is a Tamil Indian-Australian poet and writer living on Wangal Country. She is the winner of the annual Bright Wings Poetry Contest hosted in partnership with Makers & Mystics. She works as the Outreach Pastor at St James Anglican Church in the Inner West of Sydney. Listen to her read this poem.
Photography by Mae Mu