Monday, 29 August 2022

The Still Point

 





 

There’s a point beyond which all clamour stills;

you step into it – at the beach…in the hills…

right in the middle of the city square…

and the world falls away, it’s just you there

amidst the rush of traffic, vendor talk,

the cheap trinkets, or the staccato knock

of a woodpecker in the trees somewhere…

 

the sure knowledge settles in your pith, deep,

you know it from then on, awake, asleep –

like a pebble thrown in an endless well

lost in the most complex, magical spell

the planets cast, the secrets galaxies hold

the moonpaths of nights, the daily rivergold –

that point’s finally home, peace, where you dwell.


Monday, 22 August 2022

Flipped

 



He’s been in these new spaces and he’s slept

under this roof, called your name, sat in that chair,

handled utensils and fresh bread. He’s stepped

into the garden, the seafront, on the stairs.

No footprints though. And even though he’s left –

he’s made this into home. The soil, sea and air,

their gritty strangeness now easy to accept.

That’s how it’s happened, happens everywhere.

 

The places touched to home, the unknown stripped

in one instant remade and familiar,

strange flipped to comforting and you equipped

to deal with it. Because someone close and dear

for one brief moment has stood beside you here.




My son was here on a short visit, back in his campus now a gazillion miles away. I forget to panic 24/7 when I am in face-to-face mum mode. :) 

I hope your loved ones are standing close to you, physically or metaphorically. Have a brilliant week ahead.


Wednesday, 17 August 2022

Write... Edit... Publish... August 2022 : Moonlight Sonata

 

Hello writers,

August has come round quickly hasn't it? It’s time to get back to Write...Edit... Publish... where we are writing to Moonlight Sonata in our series of musical prompts. I had grand plans for this one - wanted to take a different direction, do a humour piece because honestly, what I know about classical music, Western or Eastern, can fit into a pinhead…aaand, well...here I am with a poem, it kept buzzing in my head and wouldn’t be shaken off. So much for the different direction...best laid plans of mice and men, what can I say? 


Before I post the same old same old poetry, I just want to sneak in this delightful rendition of the Moonlight Sonata being played on the santoor, an Indian instrument of Mesopotamian/Persian origins, so a fusion of East and West on several levels.  




And this one a delightful dubstep remix that sounded equally magical to my untrained, vehemently unclassical ears. Enjoy!


 

Finally, here's my entry for Moonlight Sonata, hope you enjoy this one too.


Show me your shine


The moon shines with whatever it has got –

cloudy skies, mid-phase, an extra-large spot,

it doesn’t wait to be perfectly full.

Broken but lit up is also beautiful.


The winter strips the leaves from the forest -

not every season ends up with a harvest,

the river itself shrinks to a thin thread

beautiful still on the half-dried riverbed.


Each life is complete precisely at death,

it must shine within its own length and breadth,

half finished, broken, imperfect its timing

but beautiful still - because it’s tried shining.


There’s more to beauty than shining at full,

shining on empty is far more beautiful.




WC - 103

FCA


Tagline : Shining on empty.



Incidentally, there are so many people I know who're shining on empty right now. Not just shining, but dazzling. You know who you are. Salute!


Read the other entries here :



Monday, 15 August 2022

Lowercase

 



Sometimes I want to write my name in lowercase

so that it fades behind others when misfortune

is prowling the city streets, reading the nameplates,

pondering which door to open, which house to choose,

and at others I want to write it small because

it feels more appropriate for a small person

who mostly does the smallest things. Little drops

of poems. Laundry.  Who’s stressed about the carbon

footprint, the gender gap, potholes, light pollution.

Pianissimo fits better, what’s been written? -

to merit announcing the first sound louder

than the ones that follow? Only those proper nouns

should be allowed higher volume, rising resonance

where the owners made some tangible difference.



Today is Independence Day, the 75th one. A major milestone. I'm celebrating. But that is also pianissimo. Too many issues back home. 

Happy Independence Day to all desvasis. 

May we be free of prejudice, inequality, poverty, ignorance, arrogance and violence soonest. Jai Hind!


Monday, 8 August 2022

Canopy

 




Wouldn’t you rather be in the grasslands

dancing to the winds and rains, being a blade,

being green and grounded, centred in the land,

watching the timelessness of light and shade?

 

Wouldn’t you rather be in temperate zones

be a willow weeping into a lake,

the paving under old arches, or keystones

or those meandering routes rivers take?

 

I do love the grasslands, I love the woods

and I adore the shapes of conifers

but the rainforest is equally good -

the different beauties of the universe.

 

No, there's no other place I’d rather be

content where I am – the current canopy.


Monday, 1 August 2022

Demiupdate

 

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. ~ Cicero.

 

 

From the garden.


The older I’ve got, the more reluctant I’ve become to use the word ‘have,’ as in possession, whether of animate beings or inanimate things. My life so far seems a nonstop exercise to stop me from getting comfortable with that word. The universe is constantly drumming it into my head that well, nothing can be had for too long, certainly not the entire duration that I might want it for. Not people, not gardens, nor books. I wonder if this has anything to do with gender, or having the philosophy of the Gita dinned into one through untold generations? Or maybe both? Are men more likely to identify with absolute ownership, authority, permanence? Is this some sort patriarchy situation playing out in my head here? I don’t know. But barring this reluctance about possession, excepting this one tiny caveat, I have no disagreement with Cicero. A garden and a library are totally enough, or would be if I ‘had’ them.


Also from the garden.


Sorry, are you here looking for the weekly poetry? It’s not that’s not being written, it is, but since it is starting August, I thought I’d do a sort of demiupdate. August is an important month, private family milestones as well as the national Independence Day, India completes 75 years as a sovereign nation on the 15th - huge dos being planned back home, huge controversies as well, I'm not going there. What I'm saying is - I just completed 100 days of living in Fiji. That totally demands an update. Therefore, no poetry. It will be back next week as usual.


So. What's been going on the last 100 days? The garden delights me, it totally doesn't care that I'm only a tenant and here for a limited time. And it continues to put forth its blooms as and when due. I have managed to i.d. most of the flowers and plants. The open living space delights me - not so much. It is a tad inconvenient to have no privacy - hubby's colleagues need to call around sometimes on work and I do not always feel sociable and/or presentable, I don't know whether they like having their colleague's wife's mad hair and grumpy mood inflicted on them, probably not but there's little that can be done about it by either party. Hubs had the Covid a few weeks back, fortunately mild and continued to wfh so he'd be on zoom calls in the living area while I'd be trying to get a meal together, and well, Indian cooking is all pressure cookers whistling and spices being sizzled in lightly smoking oil and so on. Or I'd be trying to write and he'd be watching the TV/Netflix and there's no way to cut off the noise...so, nope, totally not a candidate for open plan lifestyles. 


Book from Western Regional Library, Lautoka.

Checked out the local bookshops in Denarau, Lautoka and Suva. Let's just say their offerings are mostly not to my taste. In other words, total write off. However, not to panic, I have become a member of the public library in Lautoka, duly providing my grandmother's maiden name and proof of my local address etc etc and managed to read some 8-9 books, but then it's shut down without any notice for renovations and is unlikely to open before two months. But I'm still okay for reading materials, because the landlord has left a small shelf of books here some of which I will tackle till the library becomes functional again. And there's always Project Gutenberg if all else fails.


Victoria Parade, Suva. 

The other thing that's been done is to walk every beach/waterfront from Lautoka to Denarau - Saweni, Viseisei, Vuda, Lomolomo and Wailoaloa, spread over a distance of 30 km from Lautoka to the end of Nadi Bay. Also the Victoria Parade and Nasese seawall in Suva. The Garden of the Sleeping Giant we visited from the hotel in Nadi, I wrote about that in April during the A-Z itself. 


Saweni. 


The next target is to go onto the Coral Coast towards Sigatoka to the east and also go inland to explore the Nausori Highlands, I am given to understand it is super scenic. Though truth be told, it is scenic in every direction. I take my petty peeves and stresses to the waters nearly every week and they calm me down without fail. Oceanwatch and skywatch and mountainwatch, ever changing, ever the same timeless, never a dull moment and yet total serenity.


Viseisei.


The offspring is planning to be here, sandwiching a short break between his summer and fall semesters, that's majorly buoying up ye olde spirits. So much has happened since we saw him last that it feels far longer than a year. My nagging and micro-managing skills need some major brushing up! :) Oh, he's been instructed to get books for me too.  Once he arrives, I fully expect there will be further additions to the to-see and to-do targets. Maybe we can go off to one of the other islands...Mamanuca or Yasawa...


Lomolomo.



Writing-wise, there's the Write...Edit...Publish... Challenge coming up mid-August, we're writing to Moonlight Sonata - excited about that.  This year's challenges have been based on music, this one's the only classical piece, I'm really keen to see what directions people take with this. I'm planning to do something unusual with it, do something off beat, let's see how that works out. 




Also, I'll be writing and submitting more to The Daily Life Magazine from now on. A totally new form, neither poetry nor fiction, not even travel memoirs but general essays. Excited about that too, though also a little apprehensive. 


Wailoaloa.


All in all, 100 days into Fiji, 7 months into the year - I have access to a garden, access to reading material and access to writing. I'm sorted. Bonus, new places to go, new things to try. I'm super sorted. No grounds for any complaint. 


New things to try!


Stay well and happy. What are you looking forward to this month? Hoping they'll come to you just as you want and wishing you a wonderful August!