Picnic on Grass

Venkataraghavan Subha Srinivasan

You can tumble
You can sleep
You can roll
You can smell

and you can picnic on grass,
that is...
You can taste

Sweet and juicy like sugarcane

Lemony and sweet-scented like lemongrass

Soft and smooth like munja grass

Short and tough like Bermuda grass

Bushy and healthy like Sewan grass

Hollow and strong like bamboo

Tall and wavy like elephant grass

Deep-rooted and tufty like vetiver

Munja grass
Along riverbanks in North India
Sewan grass
The Thar desert
Sugarcane
The Deccan Plateau in Central and South India
Lemongrass
The Malabar region in northern Kerala
Vetiver grass
Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh
Elephant grass
Kaziranga National Park, Assam.
Bamboo grass
Northeast India
Bermuda grass