The ingredients are always the same.
Holding the end of her colorful sari I watch
as she soaks the flour in warmth.
She kneads what she feels into the dough
with gentle expert hands and lets it sit
while I visit the kitchen every minute.
She makes perfect little spheres without
wrinkles or cracks.
She knows the first few
are mine as I collect from the kitchen
tumblers of different sizes
plastic knives and spices to model and make
dough-men with black-pepper-eyes
and mustard-seed-smiles.
When she rolls each one out
it spins on the wooden board
like a merry-go-round cheering children
even those simply watching.
Each roti is a perfect circle
as if drawn with a pair of compasses.
When she puts them on the hot tava
they puff with life and my mind soars
higher than a kite in a fine breeze.
The aroma of warm wheat
is the same as the scent of the earth that rises
before one can see rain falling.
The ingredients are nearly the same.
I stare at the blob of wheat
on the wooden board in my white kitchen
and my mind whirls around it
struggling to make it as
perfectly round as Amma's rotis.