As temperatures dip, grab a cuppa and enjoy the soothing, balmy poems of Meena Alexander.

Here are my top 5 picks of her poems:

5. Lychees

Terrace deep as the sky.

Stone bench where I sit and read,

I wandered by myself

Into the heart of the mountains of Yoshino.

In one hand a book, in the other, a bag made of newsprint—

No weather-beaten bones here

Just lychees bought in the market,

Thirty rupees per kilogram.

Stalks mottled red tied up with string,

Flesh the color of pigeon wings—

Sweet simmering.

Sunlight bruises air

Pine trees blacken.

Where shall I go?

The Dhauladhar peaks

Are covered in snow.

4. Cadenza

I watch your hands at the keyboard

Making music, one hand with a tiny jot,

A birthmark I think where finger bone

Joins palm, mark of the fish,

Living thing in search of a watering

Hole set in a walled garden,

Or in a field with all the fences torn:

Where I hear your father cry into the wind

That beats against stones in a small town

Where you were born; its cornfields

Skyward pointing, never sown, never

To be reaped, flagrant, immortal.