Um...lend me your ears...maybe...??

I've been reading my poetry lately - first for the Colours of Life Festival last month, and then for a Diwali poetry fest this past week. So I thought I'd try doing it here as well. Let me know what you think...if you'd rather read...or if this is moderately tolerable? 

Incidentally, in Bengal, a tiny rag dipped in a runny rice paste is used to draw patterns on the floor on major festival days - mostly auspicious symbols such as (goddess) footprints going in, overflowing pitchers etc. The folk artform is called 'Alpona,' done by women with great artistry. You need dark earthen or plain cement floors to show them off.  Also need knowledge of the traditional designs. And of course, massive rag control. 

Diwali 2018 - Seeds of Light

The sky flows like a river into these eyes,

there’s a golden mean and meaning somewhere -

but not right now, not in the city square,

not in the swoosh-words hoardings advertise.

But there’s no place where the river doesn’t flow,

and gold is hard to get and hard to keep;

unless you count the sodium streetlights’ sweep

and signage blinking in LED glow,

and this darkness that’s some percentage light -

partly wakeful crickets, partly starshine

the horizon a faint fluorescent skyline

the towers vanishing into their own height.

Nothing extra anything else can impart –

the seeds of light sprout deep within the heart.

It's Diwali week - the festival of light, which is on 6th and 7th - I'm celebrating with some more poetry readings at a local Diwali fair. Apart from the traditional oil lamps of course.  Happy Diwali to you if you are celebrating. Have a brilliant week and November.

Happy Diwali 2016!

I.

My Goddess will not stoop to count

the flames in a courtyard,

Her footprints are more likely found

where lives are dark and hard.

She’ll care nothing for creed and caste,

for spotless floors and plates,

She’ll find the orphaned child, unwashed,

far from the temple gates.

She’ll spurn the white of rice designs,

the richness of symbols,

She’ll be with the refugees crying

in dismantled jungles.

II.

I’m ready now – I’ve rebelled often,

to light my lamps in clay,

to roll my wicks from old cotton,

put ceremony away.

I’m standing here to welcome in

the dark as well as light,

the protocols and discipline

accepting moonless nights.

Whatever walks in at my door

will find a home in mine -

the silver fruits of moonlight, or

the darkness of starshine.

Double helpings today because today is Diwali!  Or Deepavali to give it its full name, the autumn festival of lights in India, where we celebrate the victory of good over evil as symbolised by light and dark. As a poet though, I vaguely resent the equating of dark with evil and ignorance and ungodly, heck, I like darkness, it's restful, it's usually a good contrast, and it does a way better job hiding the wrinkles! Actually, too much light blinds as effectively as darkness.

I also feel absurdly pleased when festivals coincide with the weekly blogging schedule, is that crazy or what?! 

A very happy Diwali to you if you are celebrating, and happy autumn/ spring/transitions if you are not!

Now and then

Diwali 2015

Never quite ached this way for stones and streets

and sharp winds that blew out all Diwali flames,

nothing to do but pick them up and retreat

indoors there with blackened wicks - each year the same -

and nurse the hurt, reflect on bittersweet

memories where the oil lamps stood aflame,

where wicks lit symbols of hope and not defeat

in faraway cities of different names.

Now in a place where not a zephyr stirs,

the lamps burn steadfast, though no goddess feet

will come searching for them under the stars.

Never again will steady flames feel complete

without the blackened wick where nothing flickers,

the last wisp of smoke without light or heat.

Diwali 2010      

I have had to bring my lamps inside,

The wind’s just blown too hard

A small flicker and each one died

Even before the match was thrown aside

No matter how many times I tried,

Flames didn’t glow in my courtyard.

The night of lamps is a moonless night

And starshine casts no shadow

The shadows are deepest when the lamps are bright.

Yet I am aggrieved that my lamplight

Was put out summarily at the insight

Of a force I barely know.

I draw my comfort where I can,

Done with feeling hard done by.

A star sprinkled dark far better than

A dazzling yard lit by a puny plan.

Minds can be changed in an hour’s span

And flames found in a moonless sky.

The festivals always act as a prompt, though not every result finds its way to this blog. Some feel too rough for public consumption, and I don't like smoothing them out always :) This year I feel differently about roughness, rough and less rough, and much revised - all are mine ultimately...so this year two poems in one post.  One now and the other written five years ago on Diwali from a very different place, physical and mental, before the blog was even birthed. I have left the poem just as I wrote it, no edits, and one difference that stands out straightaway is how my capitalisation has changed in this time :) apart from the other stuff.

Happy Diwali to you if you are celebrating, may the light always fall on your path and never be in your eyes. And if you are not, then I wish you a happy season, autumn or spring, whichever it happens to be at your end.

Dusty and unscheduled and unlit

Lately, I have given up forced schedules -

of voices and gravity, unbroken rules

governing when the windows might open,

when they must shut, when words must be spoken,

a life of finite couplets and modules.

I’ve let the door stand ajar in dust-storms

I’ve piped in dreams of sand and low landforms,

orchestras of fallen leaves, autumn-coloured.

Led merry festivals of haphazard

words into worlds far away from their homes.

And I’ve also let my voice go back to sleep -

the freedom that’s in silence is for keeps,

and when it’s finally woken up again,

I’ve asked it to hold its breath and just listen

to chuckling rivers, to candles as they weep.

The winds have blown out my lamps, and unlit

they stood for whole Diwalis, not just minutes.

Their darkness and their beauty were unsurpassed.

Forget small flames, even stars do not last.

I’ve come across a darkness that’s infinite.

If you’ve stopped here by chance and wondered why

the door’s unlatched, the golden dust’s knee-high -

well, now you know the reason: I’m not absent

I am only doing what I was meant

to do: be still and let all things pass by.

Point me to where the answers are blowing

Does the wild moth care where the flames flicker,

naked, or within the baubles of glass,

flaunted at the points of wicks and brass,

or is mud kinder? cleaner and quicker?

Some wild tale’s heard in the depths of childhood:

how peace and stillness stick to paths of light,

how plenty comes on tiptoes in the night,

and a single wick can make or break the good.

Is it that simple? does it signify

that singed-winged wild moths are of no account?

that peace and plenty finally amount

to glass and brass and things that cannot fly?

Diwali 2014

This Diwali, there’s no lamp, trimmed or otherwise;

oil always needs a wick, to soak up and burn.

The stars align for a moonless night,

a pensive Parvati  rolls her dice.

Here’s the other cheek, let the dimmest starlight

or the darkness strike and take its rightful turn.

The dark nuzzles cloudsoft against my skin, and gives

everything a rest, no shadows, no fears are rimmed.

I’m not afraid of these moonlessnesses -

stars burn out, and lamps, only darkness lives.

Surely Laxmi’s free to choose her addresses?

and if she sleeps where the night is bright or dimmed.

A very happy Diwali to you and yours if you celebrate it.  And if you do not, then I wish you a happy autumn.

Anything hollow

Flames are rarely flame-shaped; winds put them out

or stretch them into long licks of tongues, rude
and pert; squash them with fear; force them to brood
crouched low, trembling under stars. Slap them about,
make them gulp. Fluttering hearts against mouths
of open darkness. Coerce servitude
as they want – wilful, arbitrary.  Skewed
and sharp gusts brushing past from north to south.

 

So, I never see the tents come alight

with the right tear-drop flames, row after row;
there is nothing to see, hardly a spark
to my festivity; sit content, quiet;
my lamp too is no lamp, but anything hollow
filled with oil and a wick burns in the dark.




It is Diwali night.  Back in India, my hometown and every home would be draped in lights, sparkling with fireworks and noisy with loud crackers and hissing rockets, quite deafening.  I am in a different place, and here it's impossible to light the traditional oil-lamps, even if I had them as it is too windy for unprotected flames.  So my Diwali consists of a single brass lamp lit inside my room, and silence, and peace and poetry. And that feels uncommonly good and right. Happy Diwali to you if you're celebrating.


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