Mar 2, 2019 Original Poetry
Scarf, Blue and Gold
©March 1st, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Gold over blue, over gold over blue,
The threads cross warp and weft,
Like sunlight through night sky,
And mango patterns emerge like magic
Before my gaze, as I unfold the scarf.
I love the feel of it, the heft,
The caught threads, the shine,
I love the caress of it, the kiss
The warm and the soft of it,
The scent and the sound of it,
The rustle and the sift of it.
A network of atoms holding together,
A network of threads held together,
A network of people across places
Made this scarf possible,
Made it waterfall into my hands.
And that is all for now, today.
No thoughts, no confessions,
No sorrows, no joys, no wisdom,
No foolishness, no advice,
No revelations. Just a scarf
Unfolding like a benediction
Between my fingers, as I
Cradle it in interlaced hands.
I am all senses today,
I am all senses today,
And no soul to trouble me.
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Feb 27, 2019 Original Poetry
Ghost
©February 27th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
I walk among you, and through you
And you don’t see, don’t hear, don’t speak to,
Me.
I, who lived and died four billion times,
Over and over, wafting through space and stars,
Through cosmic dust and darkness,
Through oxygen and nitrogen, and carbon,
(Oh, so much carbon, you would suffocate
And turn black as coal, if only you knew),
Through rivers, and oceans, and volcanoes,
Through clouds and burning sky,
Through ice and snow, and desert air,
Through sedimentary rock and volcanic ash,
Through, and in, the feet of therapods,
And duck-billed dinosaurs,
Travelling like specks of pollen on the wings of bees,
I, who wept with those who were killed,
And with those who killed,
I, who fear death, and have died over and over,
I, who am always alive, and who always rejoice
When I draw a breath, (Oh the miracle of it!),
I am alone, here, and you don’t see me.
I turn to you, surrounded by wings of loneliness,
And ask, “Are you there? Can you see me?”
And you walk on, eyes fixed on a point
I cannot see, because my gaze is on you.
You will not see me, until you fade,
And lost your breath, and vanish,
Until you become someone else –
Me.
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Feb 26, 2019 Original Poetry
Wind-Mind
©February 25th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Wind buffets the house,
Slaps the branches of trees
Back and forth, back and forth,
Wind blows through cracks –
A crazy reed-player, red-faced,
Circular-breathing.
The doors and windows are shut,
Membranes clenched against wind.
And still, it slips in swirls of cold
Eddying around my wrists and ankles,
Clasping me by the neck,
Whispering wild things.
I feel it on my skin, slipping in,
Like an intruder, a marauder,
Robbing me of warmth, comfort,
Cold-fingering my spine.
And I think: I am a house,
I’m a permeable membrane.
Everything beats against my doors,
Everything buffets my walls,
And the wind slips in through cracks,
And has a go at me, but I am cloaked
And blanketed against it. I make light
Of that which seeps into my mind.
If I were to be totally shuttered,
Totally impermeable, totally closed off,
I’d not hear the wind, nor breathe it in.
The wind would leave me alone, yes,
And I’d be impervious to it, yes –
But I would also be dead.
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Feb 22, 2019 Original Poetry
Lines Written to A Brave, Ancient, Bonsai White Pine*
©February 22nd, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
What atmospheres do you keep close
Hovering like a sigh, a collective gasp
Clasping your roots, even as your needles
Cling to branches, and your nimbus
Exhales secret memory that rains down
Again and again, keeping you alive?
How lonely it must be for you,
Bereft of brothers and sisters,
Bereft of animals to shelter in you,
And yet, you grow and grow
Because you might be the last,
And you might last forever.
Alone, you stand, proud white pine
Tall in your mind, close to the skies,
Taken far from your land, handed over
To those who sought to destroy it,
And alone, you grow strong, live long,
Because that is the ultimate answer.
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*Relates to this:
https://mymodernmet.com/hiroshima-bonsai-tree/?fbclid=IwAR0RAcgFxdAgOWPp-YfAi4KGwNOApvEjVOhkBmGonOXYI0w_vrjNHpT9uI0
*Relates to this:
https://mymodernmet.com/hiroshima-bonsai-tree/?fbclid=IwAR0RAcgFxdAgOWPp-YfAi4KGwNOApvEjVOhkBmGonOXYI0w_vrjNHpT9uI0
Feb 21, 2019 Original Poetry
Things That Break
©February 21st, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Glittering drops of sunlight on
Stiff arms reaching up into space.
Unseen breeze shakes them off.
Bird cuts the sky into two.
The pieces fall down and shatter.
Waiting, waiting, there’s this wait
– And no one knows for what.
Even sadness is suspended.
I pick up a broken branch
From the field of snow,
Throw it in a spiralling arc
Across the pearl-grey air.
Falling, it lies supine, dull
No trace of life or movement,
I pick it up again, to fling it.
Snow-cold and dead,
It breaks in my grasp.
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Feb 21, 2019 Original Poetry
Haiku with Stag at Sunset
February 19th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
I carry the sun
My body stands still in space,
Hurtling with the earth.
Feb 13, 2019 Original Poetry
Wind, or Grief
©February 12th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Snow falls like photographs
Trapping moments in space,
Crowding the air with light
As the earth moves through darkness.
In each crystal is a molecule
Of a life lived somewhere, somewhen,
And a breath that left someone
Like a sigh, or a song.
I go out in the darkness,
With my dog who wants to play.
This white stuff holds magic for her,
I follow, and breathe their breath.
It is past the midnight hour,
Magic is abroad, and spirits, too.
They flow between snow-crystals,
And glide through trees.
They left their breath somewhere
And I can see it, but they cannot.
Forlorn, they move like wind, or grief
Through the falling snow.
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Feb 12, 2019 Original Poetry
To John Senders
©February 12th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
What thoughts, what memories, what dreams
Float across the turbid surface of your mind,
As you lie hooked up to an IV drip, with a central line,
And a tube that feeds you?
You, who would have been one hundred
Next year, and you who are almost ninety-nine
Now, trapped suddenly in the shadow of Death,
As she rides ever closer, loving, but stern,
Cannot reason her out of it,
Because you are not compos mentis,
And Death has an inexorable logic,
Measured and cold, but kind in her way.
This was your life:
Lived in pursuit of understanding:
Of how things fit together,
How things reveal themselves in the unmaking
How things fall apart when the makers of things
Think thinly, without trellises to support ideas;
Lived in pursuit of the ways of Error,
And of the trap-hazards of poor Design.
Lived in the pursuit of ideas, beautiful, logical.
Full of the love of four sisters,
All of whom vied with each other,
And with you, and you with them.
In feats of mind, giants all,
Growing up Russian Jewish
And silent about it,
In stuck-up Cambridge.
Full of the love of puzzles and puns,
Of food and wine, and books and travel,
Of one wife whose verbal competition with you
Clashed with her non-verbal love, but who
Gave you two sons, deep of mind and heart.
And another wife who gave you undying love
Tempered by exasperation and amusement
And adoration, all together, for her dearest Johnny.
Where are you now, you who lie there,
Amid the quiet, ticking, soughing sounds
Of an ICU, surrounded by sorrowful faces?
Do you sense their presence and their grief?
Would you fight your way to the surface?
Would you open your eyes, say the right thing,
Then close them again, sinking into
The cloud of dreams that will ease you into
Nothingness?
I shall grieve your absence.
And I thank you for all you were, and are,
And will be, Father-in-Law.
I grieve for you in your faraway Toronto hospital,
While I shiver in cold, cold Boston.
And I thank you for my life, here, now.
I shall honor you, and remember you,
And bless you as you prepare to leave,
As we loosen our hands, and the horse
Canters away with you on its back.
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Feb 3, 2019 Original Poetry
A Geologic Vision
©February 3rd, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Strata upon strata shift,
And layers sink beneath layers,
Entire islands submerge in
A deadly dance of movement,
And we are dust in its wake.
But even dust can revel in light,
Even dust can fear the chaos
Of which it is a part.
Even dust can cry out against
Its own self-degradation.
Caught up in destruction,
We gaze mutely up at the
Slowly wheeling stars of heaven,
Even as our life-deeds
Blot them from view.
Meanwhile, a flower unfolds
Somewhere, quiet, small,
Full of mighty resistance,
And a tree plants its children
For the fight of its life.
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Feb 2, 2019 Original Poetry
Questioning
©February 2nd, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Oceans, skin-contained,
We travel on streets, subways,
Avoiding contact.
Negative spaces
Lie, like ever-yawning gulfs
Invasive and sly.
What would happen if
Eyes locked, or skin brushed by skin?
A flood? A tsunami?
Would we divert it?
Cut sluices, grooves, and canals,
And sail through to love?
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