Unguent Tide

In the season of give,
the tide had nowhere to turn.
It continued to pour out love,
covered the beloved
in hot, urgent kisses. 
It craved to be held and touched,
- the angst of its spate eased.
Having found love at last,
it missed it's turn to ebb.
At the season's peak, 
the unguent stench filled
the beloved's pores.
They were drowning.
The heady mix of spice
and juice made the stomach
churn. The kisses lost
their fever, embraces
their heat. The beloved
reaches out in the dark
seeking out those places
once so ready, bursting 
with life now gone dry.

The Rain Came

When rain splashes on my head
I don’t run for cover.
It is not what I do in rain.
I soak in it, let the damp
seep into my bones.
I need the cleansing
The chill shakes me out,
giving many lost years back
to redo as I might in hindsight.
Pair later or not at all,
have my worldly goods fill
no more than a backpack,
travel where my heart took me,
make love and friends on the way.
There is the matter of motherhood.
A dream that chased after me
furiously – had every baby
coo, gurgle and smile at me,
rush into my harboring arms
like they had come home
where they belonged.
And each time, there was
a dull ache in my empty womb
that had to be filled 
with life and purpose.
Then the rain came
and with it three men.
The first with an umbrella and embrace
The second with the first kiss of my life
The third with remonstrance for getting wet.

Heart's Traverse

January is usually the month, I clean up my Inboxes. This year I have been tardy. This short verse was written in 2004. There are no notes to indicate who and what prompted this. So many years later, I cannot even hazard a guess. Clearly, this is not a road I will be coming down again. There was something bitter-sweet in that realization.

Of all places that you and I will never
be together, the traverse to your heart
will be the most rued. From the summit
of joy to the death valley of gloom there
was a path that led there. You never
told me , I never asked to know. If I ever
come visiting, it will be down that road.

This other one written in 2005 is much easier to decipher. No, this one I have not forgotten - at least not as yet. Yet reading it bring back no memories good or bad. It is like remembering the receptacle and not its contents.

Greetings to you my Medusan muse !
I see your youth reflected in another
who like you is not mine or even meant to be.
He of burnished copper skin, dreamy eyes.
A smile that winnows gloom out of my day
Were you like him once ?
I think  you shear away the wild, unstoppable you
when you trade those luscious locks for a buzz.
You let your words drizzle out like acid pellets
gouging a good earth longing to give.
You said you would move heaven and earth to
be with the one for you. I was she – we both know it.
Yet sea foam did not reach for the planets.
The drooping shell of you  merely walked away.

Six Shorts

Cleaning my Inbox after a long time yielded this.

I

Swooping through
the far coast into the
heartland,  I wait
to turn  home by the bay.
My traverse a wide
crescent
Like your smile.

II

I remember the night
I turned twenty nine
with my womb full 

one half of me lay
cleaved on his side
of our bed. My eyes
turned rosebuds the
day after - tears
offered in prayer.
The night I most
needed your love.

III
The emptiness of
my workday coils
like a dreary boa
stuffed to the gills
yet loathe to rest. 

IV

On an early day in August
I made a note to myself
To  remain steadfast
In friendship and not let
Eros grime the way. Yet as
Summer turns to Fall I wonder
If sometimes its not just the same.

V 

After many years again
in the feeling of love
or its approximation, I
fight my demons again.
Needing more than being
needed. Trying too hard
to please - to fathom -
to get under the other's
skin. To grow on you like
a graft to be one in soul.
All demons of pain that
I have fought down before.
Where are my lessons in love ?

VI

A wall of tears is building
up like before - and you
do not know to coax the
flood. He did not either.
you sit behind in silence
tell me through data lines
and seventeen hundred miles
that you are well. What of
me  ? What of the words of love
twisted like a taut co-ax ?
Do you care or want to know
what it takes to bring on
the deluge ? Or what that
means to me ? He did neither.
Quietness is inhaled and exhaled
interminable unbearable silence.
I am terse and vivacious
by turn not sure which will dull
the hollow numbing pain. 

Belgrade

Lights from the home on a hill
pierce the still lake water
in jeweled spears. Two stars
dot the immense sky. We hold
hands, talk about a sunny
day behind us. Two days later
the clouds lift and picks me
up. I have sunk to the depths
of despair, feared drowning and
breathed again. You are there
waiting - arms outstretched,
harboring me, my spiraling
hopelessness, my magnificent
inertia to change.
The sun warms
my spirits, your smile and
touch. I start to uncoil
hesitantly fearing I
may be visited by pain.
I am learning your alphabet
of love so unlike my own. In
the early days we spoke the
same language - the relationship
argot of our time. Marriage
morphs the meaning of familiar
words in ways that only
you and I will understand.
We want to understand and
be understood without
effort as a measure of
our love. Often we fail.
Lying on the dock
wrapped in your arms, silence
broken by the lapping of water
against smooth, shiny rocks -
we learn our first words.
We teach each other - meet
in puzzlement sometimes.
Really ? Is that what that
means ? Then there is the
compendium of gesture
and touch. You signal affection
I read indifference. I try
love and you hear disappointment
or frustration.
We drift apart buffeted
by head winds of misunderstanding.
At opposite shores we consider
the distance between us.
I crave your touch but
fear to reach out. At dusk,
you turn to me - offering peace
ask for time and patience.
The neighbors are enjoying a
showing of Mama Mia! We join
them - we expand our vocabulary
to become a couple among many
others. Our child makes us one
of other families. They smile
at us, stop to ask if they can
take pictures of us. We smile
back, ask where they are from,
buy coffee, wild blueberry
scones and chat with them about their
day. In parting, they leave
us with words to add to our
lexicon - words we may shape
to be our own. The night after
may be just as dark, daybreak
bleaker and yet in time clouds
do part, you hold me in your arms
call me your girl as we dance
slowly near the kitchen sink.
In time, the happy moments will
stand out like jewels spearing
the dark water - the water itself
or its darkness hold not much meaning.

Parting Ways

Once I had exacting standards to call someone a "friend". These days, I use the word more freely and irresponsibly even. The gravitas associated with friendship has greatly diminished over time and more people are now contained within its orb. The woman I met for lunch last week, is a friend after a fashion. If you consider similar life experiences and the common need to share with and relate to another human being whose suffering resembles your own - that probably falls into the realm of friendship. Yet, there is no larger context around this connection and when we part ways, it would be no more significant to either of our lives than scooping out a handful of water from the ocean might be to it.

That afternoon as we shared stories from our pasts, we were confidantes and friends in a way we might hardly be with others in our lives. We both felt better knowing that the emotional upheavals we had gone through, the times when had questioned our sanity and when we had thought there would never be a return to "normal", were not unique experiences or some kind of fatal aberration. Human beings respond to situations like ours in very similar ways - there is a sense of comfort in knowing that. For a minute I may have thought of her as a sister but that would be forcing into the relationship more significance than there is.

As we parted ways at the parking lot, for some odd reason a poem by Erza Pound came to mind.

 Taking Leave of a Friend by Erza Pound

Blue mountains to the north of the walls,
White river winding about them;
Here we must make separation
And go out through a thousand miles of dead grass.

Mind like a floating wide cloud,
Sunset like the parting of old acquaintances
Who bow over their clasped hands at a distance.
Our horses neigh to each others
as we are departing.

Silence

There are words in your silence
that travels like geese in formation
There is a pattern I recognize
and one that is new.
There are so many moods and
colors to silence. We have shared
those much more than we have
laughter or words.
I know now the signature stillness,
the anticipatory hiatus when you
wait for me to call. Then there is
the slow swirl of deliberate quiet
ever so edgy and dangerous as
things hang in balance ready to
snap.
I sense a taut, eagerness to let
the words flow unbridled held
back by silent yowls of restraint.
Our connection flatlines.

Twenty Nine Words

In exactly twenty nine words
is messaged a heart's desire.
Twenty Nine is important in
some ways - it is the day after
the first time ever,
the year of lost love,
the year of new birth,
the day in the fifth month
of meeting one who said
"I like what I see" and
wrapped her in an embrace,
that touched the soul.
Day of the ninth month
when she said to him
"Stay with me tonight"
but watched him leave.
Day of the twelfth month
and he wished the her
the best for the year ahead.
So many twenty nines and one life,
so many moments to treasure
and bury.
Only twenty nine words
to ask if her heart could meet his.

Just Rice

Not to be unnecessarily difficult here, but reading this essay on rice by Jhumpa Lahiri in The New Yorker do beg the questions why and when. First the why - why is this description of preparing pulao so terribly significant when it does not transcend the prosaic to become something larger than a grain (or bowl) of rice.

Given Sugar, Given Salt by Jane Hirshfield comes to mind as do some Odes to food by Pablo Neruda. Closer home (since Lahiri prefers to stick with all things Bengali), there is Sukanto Bhattacharya who wrote :"khudhar rajoye prithibi goddomoy, purnimar chand jeno jholshano ruti" translated very beautifully by Rini Bhattacharya Mehta as :

In the regime of hunger, the earth belongs to prose,
The full moon burns like a loaf of bread.

Now that is a way of looking at food a little differently. I recognize that Neruda, Hirshfield and Bhattacharya are poets and Lahiri is not but what a poet can do with verse, a competent writer should be able to do with prose. Basically what we have here is an intricate description of the process of preparing a desi rice dish by the author's father - which by the way is very similar to something Damayanti Basu Singh had written several years ago.

The essay by Buddhadev Basu which his daughter reproduces in translation is very much worth reading. Maybe that can serve as inspiration for Lahiri if she is absolutely determined to discuss the probasi banaglir handi-heshel ( non-resident Bengali's pots, pans and kitchen) in the most obsessive detail as has been her wont. There is a lot more work to be done to make such a piece of writing shine and become a thing of literary merit. Throwing a couple of Bengali words in for "texture" and "flavor" is not nearly enough.

Now for the when - when oh when is Lahiri going to say something that does not drip markeen probasi bangali (Bengali residing in America) like a over-soaked rosogolla. The drip is gooey, saccharine and yes very, very cringe worthy. Surely, she could employ her talents to turn out something more interesting than a really bland bowl of rice - and no, the raisins and almonds do not elevate it to anything more than that.

I asked my friend S who is a desi born and raised in NYC, what she thought made this kind of desi household minutiae unsupported by larger purpose so appealing. Her theory is that average American readers do not expect world class literature when they read the work of someone with an "ethnic sounding" name.  The best a desi could do is to satisfy their curioisty about what goes on inside a desi's home and mind. Lahiri and her ilk are enabling the vouyeristic in their western readers and it is the reason they are so marketable.

2010

One way to start a day, a year and decade

New Year's Day--
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average. 

- Kobayashi Issa

Or others ways also in haiku but little more uplifting even if not quite as perfect.

Or perhaps to start the year resolving to take the leap the faith, take those last few steps.

This bridge will only take you halfway there
To those mysterious lands you long to see:
Through gypsy camps and swirling Arab fairs
And moonlit woods where unicorns run free.
So come and walk awhile with me and share
The twisting trails and wondrous worlds I've known.
But this bridge will only take you halfway there-
The last few steps you'll have to take alone. 

– Shel Silverstein

Or be thankful for the small blessings and little miracles that happen from day to day.

A very happy New Year to you !

Saying It Best

I guess it must be a common experience and it has happened to me a few times. Say you are gathered with friends at dinner having a good conversation. There is something you try to share - several times and each time you fail to be heard. Just as you start to speak, so does another person and the audience favors them over you - you miss your chance just by a little bit.

You get your turn another time but you and the conversation have moved on to other things by then. There is that small nagging feeling of dissatisfaction you are left with for having tried to say something no matter how trivial and not being able to have it heard. You may even wonder why nature conspired against that thing you wanted to say - it wasn't terribly special or important any way. That would be the prosaic way of describing it and then there is the superlative, heart-stoppingly beautiful Jane Hirshfield way  in her poem ALL EVENING, EACH TIME I STARTED TO SAY IT:

It suddenly seemed to me the kind of thought,
not large, on which a life might turn.
There are many such: unheard, unspoken.
Their blind eyes open and close,
the almost audible valves of their hearts.
But all evening, each time I started to say it,
something would interrupt, the moment would pass.

Unretractable

One evening recently, feeling totally worn-out and jaded, I said to J "I can't do this much longer. Things don't seem to getting any better". Just as soon as the words were out of mouth, I regretted the pessimism and negativity in them - the two character traits that go totally against the grain of J's nature.

She said promptly "Mommy, never talk like that. Always remember there is a sun shining over your head". She made a cone with her two arms to show me how this figurative sun was shining its light on me. Later that day, I read a poem by Jane Hirshfield titled Optimism, which J would have loved if she were able to understand.

More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another.
A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs--all this resinous, unretractable earth.

Regrets are unretractable too - words that you say carelessly. In that instant of feeling tired and defeated, I let J see how I looked like while feeling vulnerable. It may be the moment she remembers over the many others when I came through as strong and calm. As much as I wanted to, I could not undo that mainly because it defined the truth of the moment. Yet in time, I may learn to acquire the "sinuous tenacity of a tree"

Dreamer

A dreamer is a stubborn
weed, impossible
to uproot or kill.
Many disappointments
later, she will sprout
tiny tendrils of hope,
latch on to anything
that resembles love
to be her espalier.
In her nature there
are two states -
dream and death.

Tarantula

A tarantula spinning his web
or a wizard his golden orb.
The gossamer of dreams dims
the light of day, nudges all
that is real a little further
away - out of reach.
You ask that I believe in what little
we have now - offer platters
full of imaginary food -"Taste"
you say. I share our Barmecidal
feasts with you each night
sleep tired, bewildered and
sometimes even happy. I wait
again for the wandwaver, the
teller of tales, the imaginer
of futures that can be. "Dream"
you say. I weave in and out of
our two step waltz, with an
invisible partner who drifts
between near and far.
"I miss you" and "I love you"
are two interwoven strands of
spun silk - glimmering, tender
and fragile. I fear it may snap
when the orb slows down,
when the web is woven,
when the light of day
to see dreams turn real
breaks through the mist.
I cannot live on hope alone I say,
give me something real -
you have words of comfort
but no warm touch,
whispered promises
but no covenants.
I am a junkie for hurt feelings
you pour in a deluge to fill my need.

Perfume And Corona

Read this beautiful poem by Tony Hoagland in which he describes a woman in love. He writes in Grammar:

some kind of light is coming from her head.
Even the geraniums look curious,
and the bees, if they were here, would buzz
suspiciously around her hair, looking
for the door in her corona.
We're all attracted to the perfume
of fermenting joy,

As you grow older, you don't see a lot of these women in your social circles. Almost everyone is past their falling in love days - it is an old marriage, a committed relationship of several years or maybe it is the choice to go it solo. There is no corona to find and neither is there "the perfume of fermenting joy" to be attracted to. I found myself thinking of friends from years ago when I read these lines - they had been at that time in their lives, the kind of women who could be only described the way Hoagland does.

Atrophied By Fear

Through the pores of idle moments
I breathe thoughts of you.
Some hopelessly fallow,
others ripe with anticipation.
I run for cover
from the shrapnel words of lust
drowning in unguent flood of desire.
You don't own me -
not yet, not now
not ever I want to say.
I want
it all to be true and not,
all of you and none,
give myself up and not,
love and not,
hate and not.
Show me a sign,
this is real,
you will stay,
you won't hurt.
You say
Yes, Yes and Yes
to all that.
When you leave,
blue turns to black
gathering the night in it
cold and dank.
I throb to a pulse
I cannot see or stop.
I want you gone and not.
I want you now and never.
I want to stay and run.
You say this is really love,
that life spark you have desired.
I wonder why I can't
see it quite that way.

Mortality

When you connect with an old friend after a couple of years and ask the question "How have you been ?", there are several kinds of responses you are prepared to hear and there is one that you are never quite ready for "Lots. Let's see now, where do I begin. I was diagnosed with cancer and have been busy taking care of that situation for the most part". This is exactly what happened with me recently.

I had to excuse myself from the phone, go away where I could be alone so I could process what I had heard. A few hours later, I emailed and asked if we could meet for lunch one day. We ended up talking a little about her illness but we mostly pretended that it was not there. I am always quick to go into denial when faced with situations like this. There is no other way I know to process sorrow or pain. As long as I can do it, I will go on like nothing has changed.

We will get back to our old pattern of meeting for lunch somewhere between our workplaces, chat about her crazy in-laws, the latest in J's world and mine, her newest home improvement projects among a host of other things. I will measure time from one meeting to the next and refuse to look any further, scrub out all information that trends negative and supplant it with my imagination where everything is perfectly fine.

Reading these last few lines of a poem titled Biopsy made me want to cry

as the needle enters the vein,
And we search for any possible constellation, something

Familiar to name.

Yet to give in to that impulse would be to accept that my friend is ill so the tears will simply need to wait.

A Poem By Eeva Kipli

Read a beautiful, short poem by Finnish poet Eeva Kipli :

When sorrow fades
Come the memories,
And each of them
Hurts uniquely.

I wonder what comes at the cusp of fading sorrow and the rising swell of memories. I know I have felt strangely numb, it feels as if time is tied by a tourniquet. You seek respite and want it to loosen - for things to start flowing once more. Then after memories have been relieved in full-color, they recede too. Finally, there comes a time when there is room left behind by departed sorrow and memory - a place of stark emptiness that nothing seems to fill.