Poem by Megha Sood

Ingredients for Happiness

They say kindness comes from the heart
But hunger pierces a man the most
My mother always said,
So learn to soothe that hunger
those incessant wanting,
those innumerable desires.

Those that sit precariously between the soft folds of our soul
That jagged hunger that only can be satiated
by those deft supple wrinkled hands
coated with the flour and oil
kneading the dough on the warm summer afternoon
soaked by the apricity of the sun.

What is the definition of happiness?
There are many yet none.

A belly stuffed with the desire
to be fed an ambrosial meal by the loved ones
A lingering need that clings to
our soft parts thick as greed
waiting to grow,
wanting to heal.

Those moments pitted with joy,
Those moments pregnant
with the proximity of the loved ones
brimming with passion
soaked with the unending desires
acts like a tourniquet for our bleeding self.

As we gather around the whistling teapot
surrounded by the verdant greens of Gaia
embellished with the soft pockets of clouds
floating carelessly on a warm summer afternoon
suffused with healing and nostalgia in equal measures

Those precious moments
when the air is suffused with the aroma
of warm freshly cooked home meal
douse the desires in your belly
and syncopates with the mellifluous melody
of the long-lost tunes.

What more could a heart want?

Then to be around the kitchen table
a sole witness of our contentment and wanting;
for times unknown,
Where every grain of the wood is ingrained
with the little joys and nostalgia of life
lived to the brim
stripped of its loneliness,
brimming with unmeasurable elation

Of being together as one family
kneaded like a lump of dough
as a dollop of the milky white moon;
waiting to rise
out of warmth,
Together.

First published in Visual Verse Vol 8 Chapter 09, Archived at New Castle Centre for Literary Arts, UK.

Megha Sood is an award-winning Asian-American author, poet, editor, and literary activist from New Jersey. Literary Partner with “Life in Quarantine”, at Stanford University. Her four poetry collections include the award-winning (My Body Lives Like a Threat, FlowerSong Press, 2022), (“My Body Is Not an Apology, FinishingLine Press, 2022), and (“Language of the Wound is Love, FlowerSong Press, 2025). She has received support from VONA, Pen Women, Dodge Foundation, Kundiman, and Martha’s Vineyard Writing Institute. Her 900+ works have been featured in PSNY, MS Magazine, NYPL, Pen Magazine, PBS, and WNYC Studio. Her poems and co-edited anthology “The Medusa Project” have been selected to be sent to the moon in 2025 in collaboration with NASA/SpaceX. Link: https://linktr.ee/meghasood

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