Almanac-Poem: Phoenix-Song
©April6th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Rising on wings of flame,
The phoenix sits atop a mango tree
And sings a lonely song
Calling my name.
A white-hot sun rains down sweat
And curls the ends of brinjal leaves
While busy caterpillars chew on a
Drumstick tree, where fat pods
Hang down like rain.
Incense, and prayers chanted in an
Ancient tongue wrought from myth
Snake out of open windows
And the boy next door
Gazes with open, foolish pre-teen
Longing over the fence, as I go
Sailing by on a red bicycle.
On the balcony, where I alone
Court the future, stands a girl of nine
And recites poems.
An unseen audience – future children –
Listen and learn, and float through
The air shimmering before her,
Like shoals of fish, translucent
And agape, bubbling soundless words.
And I, that girl, waving a frond of coconut tree
Or a leafy neem branch
Which spills onto the flat, endless
Terrace above our house,
Conduct their attendant wonder.
All of nine, I stand
Dreaming of faraway worlds,
And teach, and speak in
Poetic utterance, part of the spell laid
On my young tongue.
Bell-bottoms, gypsy blouses,
Two tight plaits, fatly braided,
Ribboned in black, and dust-colored
From riding in the streets,
Stern-faced, duck-like,
Determined, she teaches –
She who I was, once.
Somewhere, a cow lows longingly
Dreaming of rich grass and hay,
As she roots among the rubbish troughs
On the side of the road,
In a South Indian city, her tail
Swatting greedy flies which torment, daily.
And a posse of street dogs howl
As an ambulance sing-songs
Down the road I knew so well,
And which I ruled on my red bicycle,
They run alongside,
Tongues hanging out, tails aloft,
Grins on their snouts,
Full of dog-shout.
Pigs gambol and snort among
Food-scraps and leaves, and sanitary pads
Thrown higgledy-piggledy into
The troughs where the stray cow searches
In vain, in vain.
But they are kind, animals are;
They share space, as animals do –
Courteously, impassively.
Crows watch from telephone wires
Interested, ready to swoop, their
Black, beady eyes taking in the entire world
Looking for shiny things,
And tasty things. They fear none –
None, but pigeons, who rule the cities,
And terrorize all with little ruby eyes.
At fourteen: Flinging my fresh-washed,
Heavy hair back in a slow-motion
Spray of glittering diamonds
In the white-hot noon of a Tamil summer,
I stand sometimes at the water-pump
Near the well, and pump, and sing
To the still, trembling air.
And the crows on the mango trees answer me;
Crows and girl in harmony.
We take turns, the crows and I,
And listen well. There is a joy
In simply being there, with
Every cell alive. Every nerve sings.
Sometimes, guitar in hand, I lie back
On the terrace, and watch the yellow flowers
Drift down like a dream from a nearby tree,
And the honey of them makes me yearn,
And the stars are crowded like rice
In a violet-inky sky.
I dream of romance, and everything
Feels like silk and fire, like
Blood and gold, like pomegranates
And mangoes dripping juice
Down my chin.
Sometimes, being fifteen
Can be lovely.
Older me: Walking down the street
I spot a dead rat, flung
Carelessly on the side of the road,
Empty eyes gazing at a yellow sky
In mute accusation.
I flinch, avert my gaze, move on.
A sudden grief seizes me.
So much life wastes away
In a heartless world.
Who will weep
For a dead rat?
And still, the phoenix sings,
Her lonely song rising up in
Shimmering waves of heat
And her song is for me alone,
The girl who flew away.
Still later: Once, in another life
I went to the home of someone
I remember not.
And as I passed the wall of his
Mysterious house, stone-still
In hot sun, I saw a pearly
Snail, sunning itself on a stone.
Fat and pale, on a slimy track,
It sat, with perfect, curled shell
Sitting on its back, like a spring onion.
And the snail looked at me.
I looked back.
Recognition swept through us:
Acknowledgement, perhaps, apprehension.
The snail was the realized one,
I realized this simple fact.
Humbled, I bowed to her/him,
And went my way, filled with
Simple transcendence.
I was on snail-time.
And life slowed to a standstill –
All was well.
A remembered postcard from Brunei,
Makes sadness bloom,
And the words: “Missing my family.
Stay strong. It’s beautiful here.
The city is beautiful. Wish you were here.
Practise your sitar. Study hard.
Obey your mother” are lemony-sour.
No mention of when he would return.
Another moment:
My sitar-teacher’s teacher visits,
And I, fat-braided, earnest, demure
Get my picture taken with The Great Man.
Behold: Ravi Shankar and Tam-Bram girl
Sixteen, and sure of herself.
Knows where she’s going,
Sure she’ll get there.
No doubts, despite her father’s
Crippling debts, uncertainty, loss of home.
She knows one thing:
Music and language are hers.
There was a border somewhere,
But I didn’t walk to it,
And I didn’t hear the insidious plans,
That someone might have made
To take over the entire universe.
There was an alley once
And when I didn’t reach it,
I didn’t find the
Promised pot of gold.
But a rainbow that had bent
Kindly over me all the way
As I walked to its end,
Lifted and vanished, and I?
I felt suddenly golden.
What do I fear?
This is what I fear:
I fear the perfect worlds of
Goodnight Moon, its mouse, and clock and mittens.
I fear the aching sweetness of Big Red Barn
I fear for the future of The Quiet Farmer.
I fear for Owl Babies fearfully awaiting their mother
As the night deepens and she
Takes her time coming home with food.
This is what I fear:
Blindness to beauty,
Deafness to truth,
Loss of mind to anger, or sadness.
But I do not fear the receding past,
Or the rushing future,
Which speeds towards me
Like light-cars on a
Galactic highway.
I fear leaving my people
Behind when I go.
For, I wish to know that all
Their stories are written with
A happy ending.
I do not fear Death.
Death is my friend
Death is peace,
Death is fire and ash,
And the hush that settles
On a sunset world
When the dust settles
And the logs have died out,
And only the shape of
A body that once was,
Remains.
And I, the phoenix
Will still sing atop the mango trees
Dreaming myself in and out
Of this life and the next.
____________________________________________
Here is the prompt for Day Sixteen from NaPoWriMo:
And now for our (optional) prompt. Today, I challenge you to fill out, in no more than five minutes, the following “Almanac Questionnaire,” which solicits concrete details about a specific place (real or imagined). Then write a poem incorporating or based on one or more of your answers. Happy writing!
Almanac Questionnaire
Weather:
Flora:
Architecture:
Customs:
Mammals/reptiles/fish:
Childhood dream:
Found on the Street:
Export:
Graffiti:
Lover:
Conspiracy:
Dress:
Hometown memory:
Notable person:
Outside your window, you find:
Today’s news headline:
Scrap from a letter:
Animal from a myth:
Story read to children at night:
You walk three minutes down an alley and you find:
You walk to the border and hear:
What you fear:
Picture on your city’s postcard: