Oct 24, 2015 Uncategorized
So, my beloved poet-friend Elizabeth Gordon McKim saw my post on FB about the tomatoes I’d mentioned yesterday (was it just yesterday?!), and commented that she loved “the sorting and the naming…appeals to (her) poet nature…waiting for the taste/the touch/ the aroma.”
This prompted a response from me, and I simply wrote a poem back. Here it is:
Forever Summertime (Tomato Harvest)
©Ocotber 24th 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
A faint whiff of mischievous fragrance
Like seduction contained in a sphere
Like delight bound within an ovoid
Or, simply a bright, sunlit scent.
Taste their tartness — those saucy imps,
Or temptresses who wave
Their languid, bejeweled hands,
Sometimes wrinkled, never
Apologetic, an eyebrow raised always.
Quizzical, smooth, packed,
Rounded and glossy,
So much ripeness, so much
Immaturity,
Reminds me of when I was young,
And life was long,
And summers lasted forever.
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Tags: #Original Poetry, #the-last-of-the-seasons-tomato-harvest, Summer memories
Oct 24, 2015 Uncategorized
How often do you nap?
This was the topic I got on the Random Questions – Conversation Topic Generator on Dan Alatorre‘s blog, where he issued a haiku challenge (and I got here via one of my blogging favs, Draliman (thanks, Dr. Ali!)
So, how strange that I should get my favorite topic — SLEEP?
The only problem with that question above is that I do NOT nap, or at least hardly ever. I SLEEP, and that too, often quite late, in the wee hours of the morning.
So, let’s have a go at this thing, shall we?
Dream-Nap
©October 24th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Screen-sucked, I hear you:
So, how often do you nap?
I dream my answer.
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Tags: #haiku, #Original Poetry, random topic
Oct 24, 2015 Daily Life
Crunch of leaves,
Underfoot, a soft sound.
Golden-brown flutters down,
Red-rich, green-meagre trees
Bravely holding on.
Slant-wise light,
Deepening shadows,
Graying skies.
Dog by my side,
Paws scudding,
Joy fills her nose.
Up the slopes, and
Down the craggy
Face of the wooded hills,
Down the leafy paths
Narrow and wide,
Into that which is
Familiar, but always
Changing. Strange!
I, the human, will
Forever be the watcher,
With and without
These woods I love so well.
Never of them, but in.
But my familiar, my dog,
Will show me her world
Nose a-quiver, tail aloft,
And I will enter,
Oh, so softly,
With the scent of fall
Falling soft,
While the leaves crunch
Underfoot.
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Tags: #Original Poetry, Walk in the Middlesex Fells in the fall, wilderness is paradise enow
Oct 24, 2015 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings
I am sitting with a cup of coffee at my kitchen table on this chilly fall day, listening to the late great Hindustani vocalist, Padmabhushan Gangubai Hangal singing Raga Prabhat Bhairav. Her voice is raw, uncompromising, full of pain and triumph, and not at all like the very high, pretty, curlicued vocalisms usually practised by classical female singers in India.
And I am in tears.
Here is a woman from the shudra caste who rose from outright poverty and deprivation to the heights of fame later on in her life, a woman who’s sung in front of Mahatma Gandhi, a woman who lost her beloved teacher (Sawai Gandharva), then lost her Brahmin husband whom she served devotedly and supported, who, despite his being a lawyer, lost any jobs he held, and was not financially capable. Then, she lost her daughter, Hindustani vocalist Krishna Hangal, who succumbed to cancer to 2004. In 2007, aged 97, Gangubai Hangal passed away after pledging that her eyes, still good, would be donated to the Eye Bank run Dr M.M. Joshi Eye Institute. Her wishes were carried out by her remaining family.
I have to thank my husband, Warren Senders, for playing this recording, and of reminding me of her. Here is his post on the life and times of Padmabhushan Shrimati Gangubai Hangal: In Memoriam: Gangubai Hangal, 1913–2009
Warren is himself a great and impassioned vocalist, musician and teacher in the classical Indian vocal music called Khyal. (He’s also a jazz bassist and composer of Indo-Jazz fusion, with the group called Antigravity, in which I played guitar — sadly, we don’t perform much anymore, being too caught up in the nowness of our current life, which is full of music at home, and homeschooling our daughter). He is also a huge and highly informed Climate Change activist. You can read more about him here, and about the blog he started to further Climate Change awareness (through the use of music from around the world), here.
Thanks for reading!
Love,
Dreamer of Dreams
Tags: #Hindustani classical vocal music, #Warren Senders, Gangubai Hangal, Khyal