Mar 31, 2017 Haibun, Original Poetry
Sugar-Frost Fur, Cold Feet
(A Haibun)
©March 31st, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Snow falls, fat and lazy, dreaming of Christmas in March. Dog gazes out, blanketed in puzzlement – what happened to yester-sunny-day? Memory is a shaky thing, fragile as an old woman with paper-thin skin, but she nudges the canine mind, and Dog steps out, resigned and eager, both, snow-blind. Her fur frosts like sugar. She sniffs the air, investigates the perimeter of our backyard, placates the snow-gods, steps as if on shards, then returns, paws ice-hard.
Paws leave hasty prints
I was here! and here! (they say).
Feet, meet kitchen-warmth!
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Today is the first day of NaPoWriMo 2017.
Tags: #DogandSnow, #NaPoWriMo2017
Jun 7, 2016 Haibun, Original Poetry
Seedling and Child (A Haibun)
©June 6th (since it’s well past 2:00 a.m., I guess it’s the 7th), 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Such a little matter, transferring little seedlings into bigger pots, and setting them out in the sun! Until this year, my husband did all that. Now, that the garden is entirely my responsibility from start to finish, I found myself approaching it with trepidation. What if I killed a plant while transferring it? What if all this work came to naught? I filled the pots with potting soil and rich compost and a sprinkling of fertilizer, and mixed them well. Playing with sweet-smelling earth is always fun. The hard part came when I had to separate the intertwined roots of various plants (because there were three seedlings in each cell, sometimes more, sometimes fewer). I did so, hoping I wouldn’t break anything in the process. While transferring little seedlings from the seedling starter trays to individual pots, I spoke to them, patted the soil around their roots, and sang softly to them. The miracle is when they grow into tomatoes, brinjals (eggplant), green peppers, and other vegetables. As I do this earthy task, I see my daughter, eleven years old, tall and beautiful, full of music and kindness, still growing. I love how she’s this magical being who came from my body – how did this perfect person come to be? Soon, she’ll go to Summer Camp (and my heart beats a little harder when I think of it, since she’s never been away from home, except for TWO sleepovers in her entire life) for two months. She wants to go, and it’s a beautiful, music-filled camp surrounded by nature, near a lake, and she’ll learn many wonderful things with people we trust. I will not stand in her way.
Little seedling, grow!
Dance, and dream, and court the sun
May your roots reach deep.
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Tags: #Child, #dVerse, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Seedling
May 5, 2016 Haibun, Original Poetry
Grey Day Amidst Purple, Red and Blue
~A Haibun~
©May 5th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Grey sky, goose-feathers,
And silver rain sliding down
What songs can be born?
Alone, I sit in my blue room with midnight blue curtains, and blue-saturated paintings, with a poster of Bleu, a film by Krzysztof Kieslowski on my left, and a huge bookshelf on my right. And I write, though I know not what I feel. Two birds arrested in mid-flight, one at each window, one made of straw, the other of metal, speak to me of long ago. Two long strands of blue decorative dangling things, with fish interspersed with small round, embroidered mirrors at my window, and a blue glass seahorse move lightly in an unseen draught of air. And beyond the glass windows stretches all that pearly grey. Oh yes, there are trees slowly learning to be green amidst the brown ones, and, if I stand and look out of the window, I can see the red splashes of tulips amidst the grey, like large drops of blood suspended in air, held up by delicate green stems below. And I feel nothing right now. I am a seeing creature, all eyes.
Tulips sing of blood
Lilacs bloom like light desire
I sink into sight.