May 9, 2014 Uncategorized
Music in the Present Tense
©May 9th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
The insistent beep of a device somewhere
The punctuations of birdsong
The clack-clack of high heels tripping down the hallways
The voices raised in ritual greeting
The hum of a computer awakening
The whir of an unidentifiable machine
The question from a student
Poking a head in at my door:
Is Poetry Club cancelled for today?
And my strangled “Yes,”
Accompanying a nod,
The high hum of electricity
The shimmer-buzz of fluorescent tubes,
The shuffle of janitorial feet
Jingling keys and all,
The clicking of my fingers on these keys
And the tap-tap of my restless ankle-boots –
All these lead me to this question:
And for what purpose
Is all this work, this tension?
Where’s the music?
The piano at the far end stands
Silent, withdrawn, reserved.
The guitar teeters madly
On the counter where a student
(Or perhaps I) put it,
The hanging-plants overhead grow silently,
Breathing in my carbon-breath,
While I drink in their lovely
Oxygen-rich green exhalation,
So symbiotically symbolic!
The rhythm of inhale-exhale
The music of plant and mammal
In a room full of made things,
The give-and-take of the natural
And unnatural, mediated by
Human intention and action.
I listen intently, and think:
And what’s the purpose?
And, Where’s the music?
I wonder again.
And the music blossoms,
Rose-like and silken
Spiky and molten
Opaquely clear
Before my eyes, my ears,
My breath, my skin.
Right here, amidst all these
Things, these thieves of Time and attention,
These sheaves of paper
And cluster of pens.
Amidst all these four-legged
Quietly triumphant things
On which we sit, and at which
We labor mightily.
But I don’t hear it. I wonder:
Where’s the music? Shall I play some?
And then, I find it, right here, see?
Tight, at my feet, hands, skin, ears.
Still, I’ll play the guitar,
I think, and stop
This, this thing I’m doing.
And I do.
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Tags: #Music, #Original Poetry, classroom, daily noises as music, intention vs. action, sounds, symbiosis, Work
May 8, 2014 Uncategorized
Seeing-Seeding
©May 8th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
To exist in the world
Is to disrupt the even flow
The rhythm, the deep
Assurance of air, water,
Warmth, fire, sky, stars.
We get in the way,
Eager humans all,
While losing our way.
Stumbling over ourselves,
In our desperate eagerness,
Tumbling down precipices
To reach our receding goal,
We scatter hope and despair
And loss and gain
And joy and pain,
Refusing the stillness
That sits at the heart
Of an expanding universe.
For these I yearn:
To see a passionflower,
And become one in an instant,
To glimpse a hummingbird,
And whir and hum in the still air,
To lie beneath a tree
Like a simple stone,
Absorbing glittering life-light
Sun-slippery, leaf-veined greenness –
To catch sunlight in my mouth
Taste its lemony warmth,
To follow a darting rabbit’s flight
And send peace, murmur peace after it
To hurl myself joyfully after a ball
To skitter and skid, slip, not fall
And still hold stillness,
Like water in a cup,
Unrippled, unruffled in
Surface and depth –
To give, and give away,
To forgive and sieve away
Grudges, rage, sadness, doubt,
To smile at insult,
And smile at praise,
To shrug at sorrow,
And forget tomorrow.
To gaze ahead, evaporating
As I move one, saturating
Myself with affection for
All that lives and moves,
Going from water to air
And air to water,
Repeating, escaping, returning
Over and over, and over, again.
Indifferent, but loving,
Detached, but attached.
Going from seed to tree,
And tree to flower,
From flower to seed,
And seed to earth,
And back to tree,
While lightning is
Poised to strike me
Where I stand.
And while I yearn,
Clamoring passionately,
For quietude and stillness,
The universe will
Expand forever, rippling outwards.
Before folding back,
Multi-petalled, tight
Like a fist, and finally
Return to its atomic self,
To its minute, all-seeing,
Inward-looking, quiet,
Turbulence-ignoring,
Life-making, seed-self.
And I will cease to yearn.
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Tags: #Original Poetry, attachment, Contracting, detachment, expanding universe, inward-looking, Seed, stillness
Apr 26, 2014 Uncategorized
Spring and Rain, and Flowers and Dog
©April 26th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Rain erases with gentle
Pearly, indifferent mercy
All that ever was that died.
And with one wash, she
Brings forth life anew.
Daffodils nod along the paths,
Pink hyacinths and purple ones
Glow amidst a young green
Pushing from a pulsing earth.
Narcissus and Puschkinia
Bright, cheerful pansies,
Close to the earth, but undeterred
All beautiful, all simple —
No terrors, no hopes, no fears,
No egos, no sorrows, no losses,
No working for a living,
No guilt about idleness,
No chasing after dreams,
No saying “no” to things.
All saying “yes” to Life
— Even when it comes along
In canine form, sniffs, springs,
Laughs soundlessly, and
SNAP! A pansy is gone!
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Tags: #Dog, #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, #Rain, #Spring, Flowers, pansy eating dog
Apr 25, 2014 Uncategorized
Catching Up
© April 22, 2014
By VijayaSundaram
It’s not the coffee in itself,
I hope you understand,
I’ve been sitting by myself
And there you are — it’s grand!
It’s the is-ness of it.
The here-ness of it
Not the business of it
Just the cheer-ness of it.
So, let’s have a coffee.
Oh, sometime, you say?
Would I make such an offer
If not for now, pray?
Let’s take the air outside
On these wooden chairs
Let’s watch people go by,
Stare back as they stare.
Let’s sip and sit, and talk awhile
Let’s chat of that and this
And reminisce in simple style
Catch up on things we’ve missed.
Oh yes, the world’s gone raving mad
Oh yes, there’s climate change
And yes, I do agree it’s bad
So very sad and strange!
And how’s your work and married life?
How is the neighborhood?
And how’s the fam. and how’s your wife
Did it all turn out good?
It did? That’s the best news by far!
And how ’bout you, you ask?
Oh, look, it that a red Jaguar?
(I quickly don my mask.)
————————————————————–
Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, Catching up, Old friends
Apr 24, 2014 Uncategorized
Handwritings
©April 17th 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
There was a time
When my friends’ rounded,
Precise, neat handwritings carried
A sunlit, sea-magic –
All of them.
There were pearls within,
Each word a pearl
Holding meaning, light
Glowing in them.
I loved their handwritings
Loved the slant or the straightness
The dark or the lightness
The pressure or its lack —
All of that.
Everything spelled beautifully
Thought laid bare,
A revelation of self,
All of it.
And I looked with pleasure
At words that flowed
Across ruled paper
And down the page
Erasing emptiness,
Lapping at the shores
Of silence, their ebb and flow,
Filled with music,
Rich with it.
All those
Careful, controlled
Pearl-handwritings.
Caught carefully in time
Strung together,
Making meaning –
It was all magic,
Pendant with it.
And all I wanted
Was to wade in,
Gather those pearls,
Crunch them up,
And eat them all,
All of them.
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Tags: #Handwriting, #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, Eating words, Friendship, Words and pearls
Apr 24, 2014 Uncategorized
Listening
©April 15, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
After you’ve stood
And listened to silence,
Words seem like leaves
Eddies of leaves
Whirling in a flurry of wind
In an empty field.
And yet, it’s nice to stand
To watch and listen
To stand in quietude
In solitude, checking
The wind, sniffing the air,
Looking for signs
Of life in an attitude
Of quiet reverence.
I had thoughts once,
And dreams, and songs
And stories.
I had visions of the future
Of people and things
I wanted to meet, and do.
I had melodies flowing
Clear and bright through
Dark woods of uncleared
Thoughts, once, not long ago.
Yet, today, I am spent
Not sad, almost content
Dreaming dim dreams,
Hearing muffled songs,
Stopping any visions
Of what the future
Could hold.
It’s dangerous to dream.
Needs energy, nu?
Needs courage.
Needs strength
And endurance.
Today, I don’t have that.
Today, I just sit
And listen.
To listen is to pray,
To listen is to look deep
And give the gift of self.
To listen is to surrender,
To disarm oneself.
And so, I listen.
It’s the least I can do.
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Tags: #Contentment, #Listening, #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, Dreams and Reality
Apr 7, 2014 Uncategorized
Exhortation
(OR Who the Hell Knows What This Is About?!)
©April 7, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Force the wo-
rds
Cor-
ral them, he-
rd them
Cro
wd them, ha-
rass them
Cow them into sub-
Put them on the boat
That awaits all words.
Yes!
(Poetry thrives on this –
The fear of silence.
Prose does, too.
Except that it has
So much more space,
So much more leeway.
So much wind blowing
Madly through chapters,
Stirring our consciences,
Making us stammer out
Confessions.)
And, like a silken thread
Running palely blue and gold
Between words and worlds,
Silence glows,
A Presence
Waiting to be glimpsed,
An Absence
For whom we yearn.
Death can wait.
Death knows how.
Death lies low
Waiting to spring
From the shadowy recesses,
Near where Charon waits.
And Life turns
Her head, as she flees
The Silence,
While the words
Become a ghost,
Wailing for her
Orpheus, us.
And all around us,
Roll her echoes,
As we climb, sobbing
Into the light.
Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, #Orpheus, Charon, Escape from Hades, Life and Death, Sound and Silence
Apr 7, 2014 Uncategorized
What it Means
©April 4th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
To be human
Is to be
Open to life
Open to newness
Open to love
Open to beauty
Open to building
Open to creation
Yet, it can sometimes be
Often so.
It can mean
Being pliant
Giving in
Suppressing need
Caring
Giving
Scattering of self
Nurturing at great cost. And always, it is
For it calls
For tearing down,
Destruction
Undoing
Till, at the end,
All that’s left
Is the kernel of
The original self.
And a whirlwind
Waiting in the wings.
And a field, far, far away
Waiting to receive it.
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Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, humanness, What it means to be human
Apr 7, 2014 Uncategorized
ROOTS
©April 4th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I was in a fruitish mood today.
Brutish and fruitish.
But now, in the still afternoon,
I feel rootish too.
As in, I want potatoes
And carrots and beets
And turnips
And other rootish things.
I want to eat ROOTS!
Roots! The fundamentals,
The basic, the beginning
The origin, the start,
The building blocks.
From the roots, the shoots,
From the shoots, the leaves
From the leaves, the flowers,
From the flowers, the fruits,
From the fruits, the seeds,
And from the seeds,
The ROOTS!
That’s where I wish to be.
Buried deep in soil.
Warm, cozy, at ease with worms
Curled tightly against the cold
Protected from frost and
Protected from callous disregard.
If I were close to the earth,
I should not care
I would not worry
I would rest easy,
Knowing my turn will come.
But once you’re above-ground
You’re easy prey.
Birds, bees, moles, well,
Actually people, seek you out.
You put on a show of greenness
Of flowers and grace
You dance in the vagrant breeze
You give of yourself.
You bend to the will of others.
You forfeit yourself.
You scatter your seed
And you sleep.
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Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, Poem, roots
Feb 22, 2014 Uncategorized
Puppy
©2014, Vijaya Sundaram
(February 22nd, 2014)
A puppy tumbled into my world.
I am heavy with the weight of her,
Heavy with care, but light with love.
She trusts that we will do right by her
(And how could we not?).
It is a sacred trust, this trust
Of puppies and children.
The trust of dependence
And hope, of helpless love.
In her leaping and silliness,
I find joy and the quick of life.
In her quick eyes and mind,
I find delight and delirium.
In her delicate bones, and
Elegant face, I find pleasure.
In the cleaning and the holding,
The picking up and the cuddling,
In the sleeping and the feeding,
In the sluicing and the drying
Of this pup, simple satisfaction.
So, why am I unsatisfied today?
Foolishly, I think:
What about those other things?
Why not exist in the here, the now,
The growing circle of the
Universe of Dog?
Unselfish love. Selfish pleasure from it.
In unselfishness, I see
A glimpse of selfishness.
And I swim towards it, grasp at it,
Hoping to be saved.
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Tags: #Love, #Original Poetry, dog days, Puppy love, responsibility, selfishness and unselfishness