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.

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.

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 :

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!

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.

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 15^th - 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!

Closed, but also open

 

Did you know that shop down the corner here?

I went looking for it, but it was closed…

Son, it shut when the lockdown was imposed

and never opened again. How many years

 

have you been away? The last two have changed

so many things – how we work, play, buy and eat,

the number of shops shut down on this street

the entire neighbourhood’s been rearranged

 

a hundred homes upended, windows gone blind

livelihoods destroyed, a war without a war

shutting down our lives, never mind the store

the last couple of years haven’t been kind

 

where have you been, son? Stuck on the other side

of the world, waiting for the plague to subside.

Last two and a half years, I've been treading water as far as writing goes. Posted here regularly of course, and at WEP - these are like breathing, can't imagine life w/o them (Thank you my WEP and blog families!) 

But I made no submissions anywhere. Zero. I wrote plenty...I was just nowhere near up to editing the stuff into submission-worthiness. Hopefully, that out-of-control spell is now broken and I am now open, business as usual. For which I am grateful. 

Check out this link here - Portrait of a Garden, and if you feel able, please share on your sm platforms. Thank you for your support. 

Worm's eye view

Lomolomo. Juky 22.

 

The sun has almost touched the horizon

and I too want to stay close to the ground

to read the stories silken sands have spun,

where the ocean’s scattered seashells around

 

The tide is low and a tired old white kite

lies asleep, its tail like a mermaid’s fin

fluttering over the last of the daylight.

Their day’s work’s done, the boats are drawing in

 

My body is crumbed with glittery sand

and my hair is billowing with the tide

I’m neither of the water nor this land

and I’m neither the road nor still hillside.

 

Just want to stay close to the wash of blue -

never the bird, rather a worm’s eye view.

Incommunicado

 

Hibiscus schizopetalus. Common names

- fringed rosemallow, Japanese lantern,

coral hibiscus and spider hibiscus. From

the garden earlier today. First intro. 

Recognised it was a hibiscus from the 

leaves. So Botany Teachers, your lectures 

haven't gone completely waste :)

What’s a solstice? or even three -

I’ll still be reaching for the phone

till the last stronghold of memory

tumbles into ruin and is gone.

All seven seas and all time zones,

include the seven ages of man,

and seven more births that follow on

and the entire galactic gameplan -

 

it will still flash into the brain

instantly at anything new

that I must get back, call and share -

transmit this pulse of thrill to you,

before the surge ebbs out again.

You are out of reach, everywhere.

Harvest of hate

 

I'll go far away. Your hate and prejudice

will be like sand between my toes and won't stick,

fall off from my skin even as it dries -

not a grain nor crumb. Not an atom of it.

Not one yarn of this entire tissue of lies

will touch me, nested in a different life.

Nothing but rightful the balance of justice

not each thrust acid sharp silver keen as knives.

I will stand here steady on my own two feet

and what you've sown is what you'll have to reap

today, tomorrow or centuries hence -

food grains grow only where the waters run sweet.

You'll sit alone with your sharp words and weapons,

cold your fireside. And the harvest in ruins.

Counting

 

Don’t think and grieve I count out days

in loops of memories and sighs,

that I fritter my life away,

that I stop my ears and shut my eyes.

I count instead how your laughter rang -

transformed the earth and made it glow,

and how the fireflies came along

to show off their light at your window.

The angle the stars held up your sky,

and the seas wove an orchid foam,

how the trees lobbed their branches high

just so they could shelter your home.

Their flowers still dance and pirouette.

They do not grieve, nor do I forget.

Reaching for the phone

 

I think of you at half past four,

that was the window for the call.

You’re an ancient pitted mosaic floor

you’re a bird hooting at nightfall -

at every turn, big and small

you are the groundswell of light

and a memory bridge of recall.

Nothing else to say or to write.

 

I reach for the phone like old times

the heart leaps at the strangest things -

seashell crumble on a beach,

washed up driftwood and tree rings,

the politics of violent crime.

Then I recall you’re out of reach.

Write... Edit... Publish... June 2022 : Please Read the Letter

Hello, is it June already?! Wowza, almost half the year disappeared in a puff of smoke!... This month the prompt at Write...Edit...Publish... is Please Read the Letter by Robert Plant and Alicia Krauss – and I'm really excited to see what everyone does with it, because in the previous two challenges, writers totally ROCKED the prompts! 

Here’s my interpretation…

Don't Return to Sender!

Dear -

Please don’t return this too, unopened like all the others. Or worse, tear it up without reading. It’s been just eight years but it feels like I have been sending you these letters forever, reaching far back into some earlier births aeons ago. I keep thinking what can I do to make you understand? -  to make you see things differently, to get us back, if not on the same track, at least on tracks close enough for you to appreciate where I am coming from. And where you are heading. How can I make you understand?!

 

Together, we are more beautiful, more resilient - more armoured in our love for each other - than anything else in the universe. And apart, we are just broken human beings, isolated in pain, unable to handle problems, unable to handle life. The weakest, the worst versions of ourselves. The past few weeks are proof of that. Please read this letter. I’m nailing it to your door and to every door around you. You cannot send it back this time!

 

Why must you so isolate yourself and make your home in a parallel world that no-one can reach? Many people would argue it’s not a real world at all, but a figment spiked with fear, greed and hatred. Step out of it once and see how easy it is when we do it together, how pleasant and right it feels when we work towards it hand in hand without conflict and without drama. Without the lies. Because that’s the world you’re in, the one you’ve created – imaginary, unreal. Another word for that is false.

 

At first I thought we were having teething problems, all relationships do - they will work themselves out. But no, that hasn’t happened. One lie was followed by another and another, one abusive action followed by more and more. A world built upon falsehoods can never prosper. It will sooner or later come down like a house of cards. Surely you know that? You will argue that none of those words are yours, the abuse isn’t yours. But that is exactly it! - you are quiet while your family run amok, your silence enables them, encourages them to greater heights of cruelty and hatefulness. Why do you remain silent when the crisis is so dire? Why do you just stand there and watch homes being wrecked and not say a word? Do you really care so little?

 

The past is history. Neither you nor I can change it. Who screwed whom, what was broken, what was built, what was converted and diverted with what intention – that’s a never ending loop of futility, because we can never know for sure. Human beings change over a lifetime. And their intentions and actions are often in conflict. Also how do you know what the intention was behind a particular action anyway, whether it was a thousand years ago or at this very moment? Was Shah Jahan the most romantic husband ever to build the Taj Mahal for his queen, so he and Mumtaz could be together for eternity? Or was he a sex-obsessed maniac who drove his beloved wife to an early death by forcing her to go through 14 pregnancies in a time when childbearing carried the very real risk of death?

 

If it is the thought that counts, then we can’t ever know the thoughts that created history. Sometimes we can’t even know the actions, because not everything is recorded. History is not exactly watertight, it's just a bunch of interpretations about this or that written phrase. And the historians are in a better position to analyse it, let’s leave it to them.

 

It is pointless to brood on the past, it ties up the brain in knots and keeps us busy holding grudges instead of actively finding tools to build our lives with. It only creates ill-feeling where none need exist, it doesn’t help. Far more productive to focus on what we can change and get on with that. And what we can change is the future. Not the past. Please let it go, I’m urging you.

 

This whole debate about who belongs and who doesn’t is completely specious. The entire world, every nation, except for maybe Ethiopia, has been built by migrations.  Out of Africa, out of Central Asia, and equally outward from here to further east and to the west. How far back do we go?

 

Several Mughal emperors had Rajput mothers and married Rajput women. Their bones and that of their family members, generation upon generation, are interred in the soil here, their sons’ blood spilled on this very ground. Home is not just where the heart is!  It’s where the bones of the ancestors are, it’s the land that they have tilled or taxed, the orchards they have grown and gathered from, the waters they have sailed and fished in.

 

A foreign individual residing here for 12 years is eligible for citizenship. Just twelve years. And here we’re talking of centuries. Sapta purush jethae manush se mati Ma-yer baRa Tagore wrote – where seven generations have been raised that land is greater than the Mother. And Rahat Indori said in more recent times - sabhi ka khoon hai shamil yahaN ki mitti mein…everybody’s blood is an integral part of the soil here… How would you disentangle the soil, segregate and demarcate which grains belong to whom?

 

So come, set aside those grudges, the uncontrolled rage, the manufactured outrage and mindless criminality. It’s never too late. Let’s get back together. There is nothing to fear. All we need to do is pull together, use and share resources sensibly. Respect each other’s boundaries. Value and celebrate diversity. It makes us stronger, not weaker. Come, live a life  of freedom. Free from fretting and fear. From anger and greed.  A life of love, of inclusion, of justice. A stress-free, happier life.

 

Yours,

An ordinary citizen.

~ ~ ~

Tagline : An open letter that could be nailed to too many doors in the corridors of power right now. 

FCA

WC - 992

Please read the other entries here and join in with your own - 

Shipment

Credit 

 

Too much time was spent defining home and away

by leaf shadows, textures of mud, length of the stay,

the fauna that flies, and that swims, comes back to spawn,

the shape of the constellations and of the lawn.

 

The cups we held once, and those that we lost, or chipped.

what was left behind and what was finally shipped.

Too much effort went into piling on the floors

what was mine by right, by grace; and what was yours.  

 

When the containers came to port and were unpacked

everything was mixed up inside, nothing neatly stacked -

had the cups come home or had they travelled away?

whose they’d been before the trip and now whose were they?

 

A few cups were shipped on a voyage through the sea -

they blurred notions of ownership, and of destiny.

Arches

 

I’ve travelled far from those streets, the cobblestones

of long ago, those arches of ancient times.

We’ve been stoic and gone our separate ways

I’ve taken my leave and carried on alone

farther and farther, yielding to paradigms

of unknown worlds, through years and lightyears of space.

My days have morphed to roads and my roads to days.

 

Some figment persists. A yearning for those streets.

In the dark I’ve searched the skies for the same stars,

strained my ears for the river’s tuneful night call,

stood unshod to feel cobbles beneath my feet.

But it’s asphalt now. The river writes memoirs.

And different stars get in late after nightfall.

There are no guides pointing back, no protocols.

Last week I came across a bit of random news - pale and inconspicuous among all the more monumental epoch-making and -breaking headlines - potential WWIII and the one on feminism and women's rights, the last of an era jubilee, the shocking sudden collapse and death of a well known Bollywood singer right after a concert in my hometown...this was a snippet on my feed about an ancient derelict building being restored over many years by two private individuals and being used for a public library. In a city that was once home but is now unlikely to be visited in this lifetime again. C'est la vie...mostly a one way street...