Vijaya Sundaram

Poet, Musician, Teacher, and Amateur Visual Artist

Regret and Reach

My second response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Misstep

Regret and Reach
©March 12th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Somewhere, in the course of her days, she made a blunder.  She misheard.  She misunderstood.    She misspoke.  She mistook. 

She missed a step.  It might have been the thirteenth one.  Empty space loomed between it and the fourteenth step. 

She took a deep breath, and reached for it.

The twelfth step below her receded.  The thirteenth vanished.  The fourteenth loomed.

One more day, one more year, many more years.

She spent a year in the space where the missed step was, cocooned in a state of regret.  She space-walked through time.  Then, she reached that fourteenth step.

Now, when she looks back, she cannot remember any of the details.  All she knows is she chases after the shining truth, and turns her back to deceit.  She hacks her way through to the heart of goodness, and sees right into the heart of evil.  She will not be fazed by it.

And she walks with a step that will not falter.

But there are days, when she mishears, and misunderstands, and quails.  She avoids that misstep, that thirteenth step, and flies upwards towards that fourteenth one with the ease and grace of a trapeze artist.

And catches the hand that reaches down to her before they both flip upwards, and fly through the air.

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Missed Step and Hidden Moon (Four Senryu)

For The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt:  Misstep

Missed Step and Hidden Moon
(Four Senryu)
©March 12th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Miss, please watch your step!
She makes a misstep, hurtles,
Floating, feather-light.

So easy to see
Now, floating above the earth
So sweet it all was

All the faults, the flaws
Their beauty, his joys, her pain,
Complex chords in songs.

Leaves that float downward
Look too much like autumn tears
The moon hides her face.

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All You Need

In response to The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge:  One Love

(Note: All photographs©Vijaya Sundaram (with the exception of the one of me with sitar, which is © Warren Senders, and the one of both of us, taken by a friend).

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All You Need*
©March 12th, 2016

By Vijaya Sundaram

I’ve always loved the word, “Love.”

It has a magical, radiant feeling, a feeling of bottomless abundance.  It fills me up when I’m hungry, and I chase after it in dreams.

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I used to whisper it to myself when I was a pre-teen, and a teenager, and a young woman,

V & sitar 1986

and now, as a not-as-young woman.

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I say it to my husband and eleven-year old daughter every day. 

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 [The above picture of her is from this past Christmas.  The picture below of my husband and me is from many years ago.]

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I say it to our Standard Poodle, who is full of love.

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I love love-songs, although I wrote, composed and sang only a couple of my own love-songs.  Here is one which I’d uploaded to YouTube a few years ago:

I Can’t Bring Myself to Call it Love – Original song by Vijaya Sundaram

Thank you for reading and listening!

Love,

Dreamer of Dreams

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*All You Need is Love — The Beatles

 

Happy!

On the eve of my birthday (wait, it IS my birthday now, since its now 12:30 a.m.), I wish to say this:

I am happy to be alive.

I am happy to love and be loved.

I am happy to know good people.

I am happy to learn new things.

I am happy to teach.

I am happy to just be.

There are merits to growing older.

I shall go to bed now — sleep beckons.

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Flow-erings

My third response to the March 11th Daily Post Daily Prompt:  Flow 

Flow-erings
©March 12th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

When sunlight and life
Flow into the veins of plants,
They burst into bloom.

See that thick sunlight

Flowing around our ankles
Drawing in the bees.

And that slow, sweet light,
The slow, golden flow that glows,
Makes for sweet honey.

See honey flow down.
See how it draws out sweetness,
Makes us swoon with love.

And we taste goodness,
And flowers and sunlight sweet.
Love, let us share it!

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