September 2022

from Remember the Flowers Winner (Poetry) of the 2021 Stone Soup Book Contest The grass is always greener on the other side. I didn’t understand when Appa first said it but I did understand when she opened one purple container revealing Trader Joe’s lemon yogurt, sweet and sour, so perfectly white, just the right portion, spooned up with plastic . . . I begged and begged Umma to buy the same yogurt at the grocery store then I put it into a bowl, with metal spooned up the white lemon yogurt. But hers looked better in the plastic container. Mine was never the same. At lunch I brought a thermos of rice with seaweed sprinkled over the top. She envied mine and asked her mom till one day, one container contained some rice with seaweed sprinkles too. She made a face— the rice was cold. Remember the Flowers was released on September 1, 2022. You can order the book at Barnes & Noble or through our Amazon store: Amazon.com/stonesoup.