By Sanjeev Naik

Juniper to me is a stock, not a conifer,

And Amazon a book-store, not the rain-forest.

I know my plastics - polyethylene, polypropylene and PET

not to forget poly-Bd and SBR – but

ask me about the woods - balsam and oak,

maple and cherry- the rhubarbs and rhododendron,

and I need an encyclopedia. Trying hard now to

remember the taste of mangoes, chikoos, and papaya,

pineapple is the most tropical I get these days. I speak,

think, and write in a foreign tongue

- even as I forget my own. Losing myself

in this foreign skin, I find

I belong neither here nor there.

Sanjeev Naik
Ohio, USA 
August 2000