Apr 2, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

Elegy for My Father
©April 2nd, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

I try and try to remember
Everything, everything about
My father, who spent
His life unravelling, like
A gaily-coloured ball of yarn
Tumbling down a steep,
Unforgiving slope.

When my little brother,
Eleven years younger,
Would watch the sky with round eyes,
Point out planes with toddler fingers,
My father would name them.
Avro, he’d say, Jumbo Jet.
And my father would burst into song,
Always the same one,
He’d croon in his soft light
Baritone, musical and innocent:
Avara hoon (I am a vagabond),
And sing, Avro hoon (I’m an Avro),
And we’d laugh, like clockwork,
Predictable, precise,
Delight permeating us.

He loved flying, and planes,
(despite his dreams of becoming
a pilot thwarted by this and that)
And flew everywhere, fleeing
His debtors, leaving wife
Grieving, kids conceiving of life
Without a father for a long,
Long time. 
Reality was a game to him,
And he played it recklessly,
Grimly, convinced he would win.

Yet, back at a time when
He was still around at home,
His children rejoiced,
Found his bulk reassuring, solid,
Hardly ephemeral, eternal –
A man with weight, jollity,
Benevolence, levity, jokes.

Picchu chitti aathilé
Chaapaatu pandhilé
Chappati chappitane,
He’d say, more and more rapidly
And we’d repeat them,
Tripping over his water-falling
Tongue-twister, and get
All knotted-up, laughing.

Punning in three languages,
He’d make our sides ache,
And we never stopped to wonder:
Did all dads do this?
It was no big deal to us –
That’s what a father did.

I wish I could remember.
I try and try, but my mind
Falters, and I cannot bring back
His word-play, his heaving belly
Rippling with mirth, his strange
Obsession with tidiness, his urge
For control, for so much
Had been taken from him:
His worth, his wealth, his daring,
His promises to himself, his
Poor lost left leg,
Lost to a crushing train.

I try and try, but I cannot
Remember most of his jokes – just one,
The one he made when we,
Weeping, surrounded his hospital bed
Nineteen years before his death,
When he, with amputated leg, said:
“Now, your mother can truly say
Naan ottha kaal la nikkaren,“
(Since standing on one leg
Was what stubborn people did –
In Tamil.)

I try and try to recall
His humour, but a shadow
Falls over it, the shadow of his
Chasms of pain, craters of loss –
He didn’t speak much of that;
I do.  I have lost his voice,
The one that chuckled
And guffawed, rocking the room.

I have forgotten his puns.
This is a small loss, and a great one.

When he was cremated, a shape
That resembled him lay
On the mound at the cremation-grounds,
A shape of ash, a shape of dust.
And the priest who presided
Collected the main part of it,
Placed it in a brass pot, covered
It with something (a cloth?
I cannot remember), draped
Lovingly wound garlands
Of beautiful flowers around it,
Handed it solemnly to us.

My brother, sister and I
Carried it in a rickshaw
To a river outside the city,
And dropped the pot,
Ashes, flowers, my father
Into the waters, and we
Watched, as it floated away
Bobbing in the waves.
We didn’t say much.

Where did all his words go?

Did they fly up, like birds
Released from his frame,
When his breath escaped,
His eyes fixed on a spot
On the hospital walls
Beyond all of us, who watched
While he left us, his cancer
Eroding his insides, the pain
Matching the brightness
In his eyes, as we held his hands,
And the hospital staff filed in
Silently, with bent heads?

Did he pun one last time?
Did we not hear it?
For he couldn’t speak, then.
The words had flown,
And he couldn’t catch them.
His breath fluttered out.
He left us yet again –
This time, to a place
Beyond our imagining,
Probably transforming himself
Into an Avro, flying into the sun.

He imagined us all.
And we remain,
Scattered remnants,
Of his tattered life,
Eddying in his wake,
As we gather ourselves
Into an illusion of self-hood.

I shall try to remember all this
When my breath flutters,
And my words vanish in
A puff of air, and my eyes
Fix on a spot somewhere beyond
Those gathered around.

I shall follow my words
And escape the shell
Encasing this world.
And who knows? I just
Might meet my father’s
Puns spiralling down.

_____________________________________________________________
This is my poem for Day 3 of NaPoWriMo.  The prompt was to write an elegy (I chose to write an unrhymed one), and to “center the elegy on an unusual fact about the person or thing being mourned.”

Tags: #Elegy, #Father, #NaPoWriMo2017, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram

Apr 1, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

We Wave You Away
©April 1st, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

Everything waves away
The encroaching end.
Off with you, begone!
Look!  Bright lights and warmth!
You cannot approach.
There is no place here
For the likes of you!

Hearth-fire leaps and twirls,
Dog curled at our feet.
Sonny Rollins blows hard
While Max Roach
Whirls his sticks and skates
Across meters, dancing.
And Tommy Flanagan
Punctuates all with light
Finger-tips, master-ease.

Brown rice, tofu, spinach
Cooked with tomatoes,
Spices, onions, peanuts,
Settles like a sigh of
Pleasure in our bellies.
We sit, and we read
Before the fire.  The dog
Is content, her people
Near her, two-egg omelette
And yogurt for her dinner,
Her drowsing attention
Ready to leap into
Fierce action at a sign.

So, you cannot come here,
You, the inevitable
Face of the end of things.
Do not approach at all.
Take a break, leave us be,
Leave the world for now.
________________________________________________________________

Tags: #Contentment, #DeathDeferred, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram

Apr 1, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

Photograph©Vijaya Sundaram, April 1st, 2017

 Loneliness is Wooden
©April 1st, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

Baby fish suspended
Below large mother-fish
All wooden, bright-painted,
Red-yellow-blue-ended
Blue-purple-red, wishing,
To get acquainted,
As they rotate,
Early and late.

Yearning, they keep spinning,
Gathering, alone
In gold-filtered hours
Noon-light streaming in
Through window-glass, wind-blown
They spin, while white flowers
Bloom in silken-show,
And forever, they grow.
__________________________________________________________

Mar 31, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

Canis Major
©March 31st, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

If you meet my gaze
You will see our days
Streaming with the stars

And you’ll see my eyes
Brimming with surmise.
Near, and yet so far,

Far away, you stare,
Sitting, unaware,
At that lighted box.

Scratching at the door,
Scuffing up your floor –
I want my evening walks!

O you hard of heart!
Wait till we’re apart –
Then, you’ll moan and sigh.

Leave that box of light,
Take a walk tonight
See me in the sky!
____________________________________________________________________

This is my second submission for Day 1 of NaPoWriMo 2017

Tags: #CanisMajor, #Dog-Poem, #NaPoWriMo2017-day-one

Apr 30, 2016 NaPoWriMo

Little Boat Setting Out – Translation Poem
The title above is mine, but the poem is Dante Alighieri’s
©April 30th, 2016
Translated by Vijaya Sundaram

From Dante’s Paradiso, II, 1-9.
O voi che siete in piccioletta barca,  
desiderosi d’ascoltar, seguiti
dietro al mio legno che cantando varca,
[tornate a riveder li vostri liti:]  
Non vi mettete in pelago, ché forse,
perdendo me, rimarreste smarriti.
L’acqua ch’io prendo giá mai non si corse;
Minerva spira è conducemi Apollo,
è nove Muse mi dimostran l’Orse.

My Translation:
O, you in your small vessel
Desirous to listen, follow
Behind my wooden boat which crosses, singing,
(Turn back, if you wish to see your opposing shores again:)
Place not yourself in open seas, where perhaps,
Losing me, you will be eternally lost.
The waters I take no one has traversed;
(The spirit of) Minerva inspires, Apollo conducts (my passage),
And the nine Muses show me the Bears.

(I had always been haunted by this beautiful piece of music from La Double Vie de Veronique since I saw it way back in 1992 –and although I guessed some of the meanings, having studied Italian for seven or eight months,  I had a little help from Google Translate!)

Tags: #LaDoubleVieDeVeronique, #Translated Passage from Dante's Paradiso II 1-9

Apr 29, 2016 Free Verse, NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

I Remember All This …
©April 29th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

I remember when I was born.
I was wrinkled and dark,
And quiet, I think.
I remember my mother
Singing to me in her womb.
Her voice shaped me,
Note by golden note.

I remember seeing pigs
Rooting, squealing on the streets
Outside my grandparents’ home.
Squealing in joy, I followed,
Entranced by their wiggly tails.
I remember climbing trees
And scraping knees, like
Maria, she who made me
Want, nay, covet, a guitar
And a home filled with
Clamorous, singing children.

I remember watching green light
Slipping down the polished leaves
Of mango trees, and feeling
Smooth and sunlit from within.
I remember the soft, soft skin
On the back of my hands,
And the shiver it gave me
When I caressed it absently.

I remember the song I sang
At the Museum Theatre,
My first big audience in a big city.
And the mad burst of applause
After a few seconds of nerve-bending
Silence, a silence which terrified.
I remember how everything
Shimmered like a dream,
Like the pale fires of an opal,
And smelt of jasmines,
And bursts of marigolds,
And aging wood and carpets,
And old velvet drapes in that
Old theatre in Madras.

I remember my music,
Born with me, and living
Like blood within me.
Flowing even now, singing
While I think on these matters,
And worry about the planet,
Singing like a river
Flowing to an unknown sea,
Singing without the desire
To be heard, or acknowledged,
Singing, while I write these words.

I remember my father’s mother,
First alive, kind and gentle,
Without personality, without joy,
Without rancour, without rage,
Without a real life of her own.
Then dead, laid out cold and straight,
My family’s living room, lying
Still and large-bellied and sad,
Clad in her death-sari,
Water on the floor puddling around us,
Poured onto her by all the family
A frightening, bewildering custom
I’d never seen until then.

I remember with a shudder
The chilling wails of an
Old, old woman, who appeared
As if from nowhere 
(A relative, I was told),
And keened in ritual mode.
I remember how, after,
She abruptly ceased,
And partook of the sesame
Sweetmeats, and black pepper foods
Cooked for the occasion,
And chatted in banal mode.

I remember wincing away from
Sesame sweets and black pepper
For years and years afterwards.
I remember riding nightmares
All the way into the break of day.
I remember crawling into
My parents’ room, terrified
Of ghosts and the cloying dark,
For I could see all
The spirits ranged around me,
Whispering and pointing.
I remember the comforting
Soft bulk of my father on my right,
The rounded plumpness
Of my mother on my left.

I remember my father
Saying this to me:
“I didn’t cry when my mother died;
I cried when I had to cremate her,
And utter Sanskrit prayers,
Saying, This is the body of
The Mother whose womb bore me,
Whose body nurtured me,
Which now, I consign it to the flames.”
Perhaps, I misremember
His exact words, but that was
The mist, the gist of them. 

I remember my husband,
Staunch and loving,
Dutiful and beautiful,
Full of music and song
Full of laughter and puns,
Full of kindness,
Telling me he loved me
That very first time,
Lo, so many years ago!
And how our love bloomed,
And our life together
Became a work of art
Full of flaws, yes, but
Full of beauty, and still
Shining, despite decades.

I remember when my daughter
Came to be, like a flower
Born of music and love,
Born to music and love,
Bringing sunlight, bringing warmth
Into my swelling body.
How like a goddess I felt!
And I remember watching
Her grow up, and still growing,
And as she grows,
I remember every day,
Every minute, as a pearl
Which I stitch into my days,
Drawing them close and bright.

I remember so much,
Some things of consequence,
Some of no import.
And soon, these memories,
Like my father’s own ashes
When he died – unwilling
To leave my mother until the end,
Despite the disappointments,
Despite the pain, the losses,
He and she had borne, and
With love for each other
Triumphing over all of it –
These memories will swirl
Like his flowers and ashes
In the water, where my
Brother, my sister and I
Emptied the brass pot
Which contained him,
And flow downriver.

I know, I shall remember
This and more, at the time
When I shall be thus emptied
Into a swirling river, flowers and all.
I shall join the Great River, where
All these memories will form the Great Om.
And I shall remember you all, while I sit
Dreaming on a white lotus
Springing from the navel
Of the great Brahman,
All around me, the stars will wheel,
While the planets spin, and the
Universe goes quiet.

___________________________________________________________

Tags: #Brahman, #FreeVerse, #IRemember, #Memories, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #TheGreatHum

Apr 28, 2016 Free Verse, NaPoWriMo

Song of Freedom (A Read-Backwards Poem)
©April28th, 2016

Singing a song of freedom.
Or, perhaps, it was her blood
Mermaids singing to her.
Somewhere, she could hear
The water stung like hornets.
Burning with borrowed heat.
A comet with icy heart,
Hurtling through the air,
She took a deep breath, and flew,
As her blood moved slowly in her veins.
She moved slowly to the rocky cliff.
Sing a song of freedom to her feet.
She threw off her heels, felt the grass
She climbed down a beautiful yew tree.
Hand over foot, over hand over foot,
Leaning over, she saw her escape.
Desperate, she found the open French window.
Made smiles and talk, made promises, broke them.
People on the dance-floor, people in the library.
People in the kitchen, people in the bathrooms,
People near the door, people near the balcony,
Escape routes were closed off.
But turned away, lips aching.
Automatically, she smiled back,
Drink in hand, his lips speaking.
A man approached her, smiling,
Something like sadness.
Something sharp cut inside her throat,
And to her right, a trapped deer
She looked to her left, wildly,
Nor did she care – empty, like her cup.
What they discussed, she did not know,
Deep in a dance beyond her ken.
Arms gesticulating, lips moving,
She moved, where people talked.
Slowly, slowly through the throngs,
Was this real, a dream, imagined?

_________________________________________________

This was in response to the NaPoWriMo prompt for Day 28:

And now, for our prompt (optional, as always). Today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that tells a story. But here’s the twist – the story should be told backwards. The first line should say what happened last, and work its way through the past until you get to the beginning. Now, the story doesn’t have to be complicated (it’s probably better if it isn’t)!

Tags: #BackwardsStoryPoem, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram

Apr 27, 2016 Free Verse, NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

Note:  I chose to write this poem with 17-syllable-long lines.
It’s dedicated to all couples, and all friendships.

Long Lives, Long Lines
©April 27th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

You stand back to back, each facing the other direction, and winds howl
And your house begins to fall over slowly, oh so very slowly!
Your silence deafens, and your voices aren’t heard as  both try to speak
And there is love, yes, and attraction, yes, and mutual resentment, yes.
Yes, there are years of patching and mending, and years of joyous laughter
Yes, so many years of misunderstanding, expectations unheard.
And one whispers to the other, Did you hear me when I said this thing?
And the other strains to hear what the one is saying as the words form.
The winds keep howling, and the house pauses in its slow-motion falling.
And the other cries out, I tried, I tried though I did not understand!
I was so full of dreams, so full of things I needed, wanted, to do.
The one whispers, And I would have gone to the ends of the earth with you!
I would have lifted you up if you fell down when your dreams bade you fly.
And the other cries, I doubted I could fly, that you would carry me!
The wind dies down, and the house still slants, listening to their words, not falling.
You turn to each other, faces drawn, but filled with growing hope, and sing:
Will you come with me on this long journey, will you listen, will you stay?
Will you forgive, will you forget, will you build this house with me again?
And the house listens, and straightens, and the wind becomes a breeze so sweet
And you find in each other’s unspoken thoughts the dream that wants to grow.
And yes, you love, and yes, you hear, and yes, you dream, and yes, you live.

_________________________________________________________________

In response to the Day 27 prompt from NaPoWriMo:

Finally, our prompt (optional, as always!) Today’s prompt comes to us from Megan Pattie, who points us to the work of the Irish poet Ciaran Carson, who increasingly writes using very long lines. Carson has stated that his lines are (partly) based on the seventeen syllables of the haiku, and that he strives to achieve the clarity of the haiku in each line. So today, Megan and I collectively challenge you to write a poem with very long lines. You can aim for seventeen syllables, but that’s just a rough guide. If you’re having trouble buying into the concept of long lines, maybe this essay on Whitman’s infamously leggy verse will convince you of their merits. Happy writing!

Tags: #AboutLifeandLoveandFriendship, #AboutPartners, #Day27NaPoWrimo, #LongLines, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram

Apr 26, 2016 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry, Rhymed couplets

Down-River
©April 26th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Float down-river, see me shiver.
I see you from afar, O Friend.

Come, draw me clear away from here
Why should I heed you when you plead?

Oh, take me where no one will stare
But if I do, you’ll see me true.

Oh come, dear friend, from out your dream,
And why should I, O voice who calls?

Come float me down this silver stream.
But it will end in a waterfall!

I cannot wait, the hour’s late
I’ll hold a place for you, O friend.

I’ll jump in now, come through somehow.
Then, you will see me at the end.

______________________________________________

My second response to today’s NaPoWriMo prompt (Day 26 )

Tags: #CallandResponsePoem, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #RhymedCouplets

Apr 26, 2016 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

Hear Not the Call; Do Not Respond
©April 26th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Come, fly the skies with roaring cries!
We shan’t, we won’t, O Thunderbolt!

Oh come, release the tops of trees!
But you’ll not win, O Typhoon winds!

Let’s burn the shade from all these glades!
Oh, that’s not done, O blazing sun.

Let’s churn the seas into boiling tea
We shall refrain, O Hurricane!

Let’s split the heaven with flashes seven
We’ll all revolt, O Lightning bolt!

We’ll come in peace, make tumult cease
We’ll take a stand, and save this land.

_____________________________________________

My first response to today’s NaPoWriMo prompt (Day 26 )

Tags: #CallandResponsePoetry, #Couplets, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram