Mar 24, 2016 The Daily Post
In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt for March 23rd, 2016: Nerve
Neural Impulse, or: Echolocations
©March 24th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
So many nerves, so many branches
Striving towards the others.
Even here, in this
Deepest, densest, convoluted
Folded forest beset with confusion,
Weary travellers cross
Vast distances with urgency
To touch another kindred cell.
So, too, we.
With our pixellated selves,
Our stories and songs,
Our responses, our feelings,
Our spilling of secrets
Into the ether, winging our
Solitary way into the vast night,
Hoping that another secret
Traveller will hear our
Echolocation.
Synaptic songs
Signalled stories
Nerve endings.
All here.
________________________________________________________
Tags: #Communication, #Daily Prompt, #Nerve, #Travellers
Jun 5, 2015 Free Verse
Darkly, but Darkly
©June 5, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
I am here, and yet
I am not. I exist somewhere.
You look at me,
Eyes opaque with layers
Of expectation, with preconceptions
Which pull like weights,
With ghosts that float upwards
From the wishes of others
Crowding around behind
Your gaze, hot and oppressive,
Dark, without stars.
What do you see?
Why this mockery?
Why this scorn and laughter?
Why the curled lip, the sneer?
Why this disrespect, this
Lack of courtesy?
Am I there for you
As a person, a teacher, a woman
A girl, a child, a student?
I am here, and I have been torn
From the womb of a richly
Happy, pregnant universe
That hummed to me
And lulled me to sleep
As I was being rocked within
Her spiral galazies.
In your gaze, here now,
I am reduced to a thing
A person who simply stands
In your way, speaking words
That ring hollow and meaningless,
While you chew on your gum,
Mindlessly playing with
A trivial toy.
In your gaze,
Am I narrow and tall
Or short and dark and wide
Like a spinning earth,
Whose equator grows,
And whose poles get flattened,
And whose gravity deepens
With time?
What do you want from me?
What does anyone want?
What do I want from you?
Probably nothing, really.
Or maybe, everything –
Everything that has no name,
That slides smoothly
Sideways between layers
Of a real world, a real life,
Slivering and splintering
That which is real into
Reflections upon reflections.
So, you want something, or nothing
From me, and so do I, from you.
Yet, here we are, fascinated,
Irritated, angry, disinterested,
Engaged, detached, leaning forward,
Pushing back, turning sideways.
Would you like to hear me speak?
You do?
I do.
First, you are filled with admiration,
And now, your head droops.
Is it too much, what I say?
Is it all too much,
All those words, those
Endless streams of words
Sweeping away all protest
All other things you wanted to say?
Am I real in your eyes?
Are you real in mine?
We see each other but
Through a glass,
And as we reach out,
Touch fingers, palms, hands
Shake hands,
The glass cracks and shatters
And we get cut to the quick.
So, we back away, and quickly
Conjure up another glass in its place.
In this, our world, things
Shift shape, scream, scatter,
Reform, melt and blend,
And blur, and re-form, all figures
In a hyper-real dream.
For, reality is
Entirely too much.
You see me.
I see you.
And we won’t know each other again,
As we gaze through a glass
Darkly, but darkly, searching in vain,
For all will have changed,
And we will not see us.
_____________________________________________________
Tags: #Communication, #Original Poetry, Expectations, Mirrors and reality, What others see when they see us, What we see when we see others
Oct 16, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Teaching and Learning
There’s a sweetness to children who care about other children, without feeling the need to be “cool.”
When I see a lack of such caring, I suspect it as being the result of too much exposure to popular culture, or too much knowledge of the world, or too little exposure to what simple affection, sans expectation, might look like. Lack of this simple connectedness is detrimental to our humanity as a whole — when one person behaves indifferently, and that person has some clout, indifference spreads. (Witness the increased lack of empathy in so many parts of our political and social culture.)
I have had, over the years, some teenaged students with special needs of one sort or another, or children who may have issues with learning because of emotional needs. Many times, there’s a vulnerability and a gentleness about those students that grabs my heart more than any other children I’ve taught.
Today, there was a young teenager who held the hand of another throughout the field trip we took to a museum. The other is on the spectrum, while the hand-holder is a kid with emotional and learning issues, although perfectly functional and able to communicate easily. They were happy. They sat on the bus together. They had a closeness that didn’t have anything to do with words. Both knew that the other cared. All artifice was stripped away. There was no issue of ambiguity. There was no sense of “You’re my friend today, because it’s convenient for me to have a friend.” There was a calmness, a surety, a sense of having a place in the world.
What’s happened to so many of the rest of us? Are we so heartless that gentleness and kindness take a backseat?
My heart was so moved by those two students, that I was close to tears. I couldn’t explain it.
They may have challenges in terms of academics, but they are always my true teachers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Communication, autism, caring, field trip, nurturing friends, special needs, teaching really special students
Mar 21, 2013 Teaching and Learning
Despair — A Poem
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 21, 2013
All this writing is a flailing
All this talking is a failing
All these songs are a wailing
All these stories are a hailing
Of ice onto a desert, frozen
By sun and burned by snow.
You know that, don’t you?
A flailing and a failing
Because the silence waits.
Brooding and unrelenting
Endless and frightful,
The dark and angry silence
Waits.
Jealous of those who speak,
Greedy to suck our sounds,
Enraged by us,
Ready for us,
Eternal and malign,
Silence awaits our sound.
For it will all be swallowed
By the gaping chasm
Yawning like a grin
In the skull of Death,
A chasm that widens
And lies at the very end of
The trail of my words,
And the wail of yours.
Our out-pouring of the chatter
Which approximates thought,
Words, words, words:
Weak reflectors of the
Unfathomable,
Beaming into the blackness
Between our minds,
Create false comfort,
For in our waking sleep,
Creeps in the beast.
All words lead to …
All roads lead to …
All songs lead to …
All action leads to …
So, I know this, don’t I?
And you know this, don’t you?
And yet, I struggle and flail
Throw my songs, my words out,
Hoping some of them will flutter
Onto a Waiting Cliff, bleached
By a starving sun,
Weak but pulsing still.
And you struggle and flail,
Toss out cry after cry,
Song after song,
Story after story,
Hoping they will be
Miraculously delivered
To a faraway shore.
Perhaps a Someone will see
And hear, listen and watch.
See mine struggling,
Loosen their terrified hold,
And set them free.
Perhaps another Someone will see
Your castaways on the faraway shore
Revive them, give them succor.
And they too will be free,
Eternals, all.
And perhaps, mine will flutter
Into a sky that promises
Something unknown,
Unknowable, but bright.
And perhaps, they will call
Into the widening sphere
Hoping to find their mates,
And roost somewhere,
Forever.
And perhaps yours will traipse
Into another sphere and bask
In the light of Imagination,
Ready to be reborn
In another form.
I can only dream of this,
I can only give shape to this
In those very words
Which might tumble,
Echoing eerily
Into that yawning chasm.
For, to think otherwise,
Is to die, not by degrees,
As we all do, and must,
But right here, right
Now.
– And that would never do!
And thus, the false dawn brightens
Our gasping, choking day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Feeling very, very dark today.)
Tags: #Communication, #Death, #Hope, Despair, Eternity, Falling, False Dawn, Flailing, Silence, Words