Jun 30, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Clouds Shaped Like Au Revoir
©June 30th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
There were clouds looming ahead
All pregnant with sunlight and rain-light,
Clouds shaped like au revoir,
Auf Wiedersehen, phir milenge,
Aprama pakalam,
Until we meet again,
When we drove to Vermont,
En famille, to the place
That would be nurturing my daughter
For seven weeks.
To drop her off at camp –
My daughter, my only one,
The starlight of my eye,
The laughter of my days
The love of our life –
Was easier than I thought
Yesterday,
The day I grew up.
Yes, there were some tears
(Mine, just a few,
And just on the way back.)
Yes, there was some joy
(She’ll be fine; she loves it already.)
Yes, there were some fears
(But she is sensible and bright
And filled with joyful openness
A flower before the sun).
See, it’s like this:
You spend nine months
Carrying a whole galaxy
Within you.
You watch over her,
Teach her everything,
How to speak, how to sing,
How to read, how to write,
How to be moral and kind
How to forgive, and how to love,
You feed her, sing to her,
Tell her stories, take her places,
Fill her days with love.
You spend your days
Wondering how all this will
Shape the future.
You learn to let go, just a little,
But you don’t think you’ll
Do so entirely, not for a while.
And then, when the time comes,
And she’s ready, and happy,
You learn to loosen that kite,
(Just for seven weeks, But still …),
Trusting that she’ll be all right,
They’ll be all right,
You’ll be all right.
And there were clouds
Looming ahead as we drove
Upwards, yesterday.
And clouds looming ahead
When we drove back,
Some white and some gray
But all shot through with light,
Bursting with light, barely contained –
But the kite flies on happily
Swooping through those clouds
A happy-shaped kite of Daughter.
And the string still holds
Her to us, to me,
An invisible umbilical cord
While I send her
Mother-prayers for safety
Within her freedom,
And my heart expands
Like a sky with clouds,
Shaped like a home-coming.
___________________________________________________
Tags: #Clouds, #DailyPrompt, #Daughter, #Leave-takings, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Jan 12, 2015 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes
Daughter
©January 12th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
So, my daughter turned ten last Friday.
TEN years!
How did this happen?
First, a bump, then a baby, then, this person — this deep, deep soul who reads day in and day out, sings day in and day out, thinks profound thoughts about life and death, truth and falsehood, good and evil, and also plays with toys, plays on the playground, gives her unconditional love to her parents and friends, holds no grudges, forgives easily, thinks the best of others, and loves freely. She, who was moved to tears by music at three months, moved to tears by poetry at 11 months, whose first sentence to me was “Pwe wea book!” (Please read book), who loved the taste of spicy South Indian Sambhar at 10 months, who began toddling about at 9 and 3/4 months, who stood patiently in line at airports from eighteen months (when we went on our mostly annual trips to India), who trusted and trusts me implicitly, looks to me for the truth, and I am honor-bound to give it always.
There’s more, dearest daughter, and I’ll write more, but for now, Happy Birthday, love, and may the world treat you well, and give you peace and love. May you give back to the world. May you know no hatred, hurt, or fanaticism. May you keep that shining light of yours always lit, through loss and gain, laughter and pain, through learning, being and doing. May music sustain you through times of tribulation, and may laughter bring you out of sorrow, if there be sorrow. May your delight in the world, its beauty, its animals, its mystery and its people sustain you through everything until the end of time.
Love,
Mom
(Dreamer of Dreams)
Tags: #Birthday, #Daughter, the big Double Digit, turning ten
Sep 30, 2014 Original Poetry
A Sleep-Prayer for My Daughter*
©September 30th,2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Blue descending, silken-deep
Like midnight promising her sleep
Darkness, spilling sweet moonlight,
Ease her mind with gentle night.
Let her sleep, and let her dream
Let her visions palely gleam
In quiet streams, in forest glades
In hollows where no one has strayed
Hold her sweetly in your arms,
Oh Sleep and Night, and bring no harm.
Let her smile in sleep, and think
No thoughts of death. And let her drink
From wells of fun, of play and song
Show her where she might belong.
Then, float her boat of happiness
On moonlit streams with no distress
That brook of dreams where she
Will sing, and read, and quietly be.
For childhood’s full of dreams and fears
Give her strength and spare her tears.
_______________________________________________________
Tags: #Daughter, #Love, #Original Poetry by Vijaya Sundaram, Dreams and visions, Happiness and peace, Prayer for My Daughter
Jun 13, 2014 Uncategorized
Matrix
(Upon Seeing the Daughter of My Friend Who Died)
©June 13th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Child, whose fulcrum’s gone–
Leaves fall to earth, trees can die.
~ Summer rainshine weeps.
Yet, she plays and smiles
A child with no words for grief
Fish can swim to air.
And you, the father,
Broken, full of promises,
Can you face this child?
Not for me to speak?
Winds blow through the neighborhood
Speak of my friend’s grave.
For shame, you father!
Whose child dances on tightropes —
Honor her mother!
My friend, who died last year
Welcomed death, for cancer’s hell.
Her child breathes her breath.
Remember her child!
Her bones and her blood are hers
Spare love, spare your breath!
You will be your judge
And there will be reckoning –
Kneel, when your light fades.
Yes, you lost her too
To each, his loss, to each, hers –
Honor, cherish, weep!
And child, remember.
Reflections hold memories –
These make matrices.
__________________________________________________
NOTE: The root meaning of matrix is “mother” or “womb.”
Tags: #Daughter, #Death, #haiku, #Original Poetry, death of a young mother, grief, matrices, matrix, original haiku, selfish father
May 11, 2014 Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes
Repletion Mode — An Other’s Day Poem
©May 11th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Mother Day yawns
I lie in bed.
Birds unfold the day.
I lie in bed.
Sounds of household peeling.
I lie in bed.
Sunshine splintering.
I lie in bed.
Cup of coffee in husband’s hand.
Bounce of daughter and dog on bed.
I arise, a sea creature,
From torpid dreams.
Tiredness rears over me
I drown in enervation.
Yet, slowly, slowly,
Depletion mode gives way,
Slowly getting replete again,
Slowly, slowly now.
Oh, so slowly.
I sit up and hug my child.
It’s Other’s Day.
________________________________________________________________
Tags: #Daughter, #Dog, #Original Poetry, completion, husband, Mother's Day
Jan 25, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes
Meditations Upon Walking on Solid Water
©By Vijaya Sundaram
January 25, 2014
I had never walked on water in my entire life. Today, with quaking heart, I did.
It wasn’t too bad. It was lovely, in fact.
To think that there was a pond filled with water which teemed with possible life, which would, in springtime and summertime, have ducks and geese, and frogs and fish, which now supported my weight, and sang it’s safe, it’s safe to my internally trembling self!
(I was fine on the outside, although I wanted to get on it, go across and back as quickly as possible. For, despite all the assurances and reassurances by my husband, who said, “I grew up near a lake, don’t worry, this pond is frozen solid, look!” and jumped on it, all my cells shrieked, No! It isn’t. Don’t!)
My daughter, intrepid and impatient with me, said, “Come on, Mom! It’s great! See? And she walked on ahead of me, following my husband.
I knew that she was anxious for me to enjoy it like she did. So, I put on my brave face, and squared my timid shoulders, and did.
Something interesting happened then. I wasn’t afraid, anymore. I put my trust in my husband and my child, and walked on solid water. Ice is interesting. It has personality. It has stillness. It is mysterious, a presence that could be either kind or cruel. It was kind to us today. No betrayals lurked beneath its opacity.
Then, we went back to the main trails in the woods where we were walking. We walked in companionable silence punctured by occasional inconsequential chatter in the dark stillness of the night-time woods, lit by snow. We heard the creaking of an occasional tree, as we wound our way up to the very top of the hill in the woods.
There we stood on snow-covered rocks, and looked down on the intermittent shoals of cars, exotic fish of gold and red streaming towards us and shimmering away from us on the highways far below. The lights of the city gleamed jewelline in the winter night. A faraway airplane took off, glittering into the sky, from the distant airport.
Our daughter is a child of winter, and a child of these woods. The woods are hers, that hilltop and its tower belong to her alone (also to us, by extension), and that pond we walked on has been part of her consciousness since she was about twenty-two months. She gazed around and exclaimed over and over, “It’s so beautiful here, isn’t it?” And she sighed and sat on a snow-covered rock, gazing into the night. My husband and I murmured in agreement, as we stood and gazed out, eyes saturated with the lights of the night.
Permanence is an illusion, I know, but I like to think that these words and that pond are part of the permanence of her memories. I want for us to build a universe of memories. These will sustain her (and us) through what is sure to come in the future, because the future is always jealous of the present.
And the present is our gift from the Lords of Time.
____________________________The End___________________________________
Tags: #Daughter, #Father, #Memories, family outing, illusion, mother, permanence, Time as thief, walking on a frozen pond, winter walk in snow-covered woods, woods at night
Jan 9, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes
A new person entered our lives. She transformed us … into parents. We haven’t been the same since. Life has more richness, more depth, more beauty, more music, more love, more … dimensionality.
Below is what I wrote on my Facebook page:
_________________________________________________
So, today, our little girl turned nine!
It’s hard not to feel sentimental.
Also, a sense of amazement at how time shapes reality.
Nine years and a day ago, she wasn’t at our table.
I remember (in the days leading up to her birth) trying to imagine her in our lives, at our table, in our living room, playing with toys, making up stories, singing all over the house, reading, sprawled in various positions in her room or any other room.
I almost succeeded.
This is where imagination cannot match reality. Reality is a million times more beautiful and satisfying.
Happy Birthday, dearest S!
Poets have muses.
She is mine.
________________________________________________
I am grateful for her. Thank you, Universe!
Dreamer of Dreams
Tags: #Daughter, #Love, #Mother and Daughter, birthdays, Gratitude, mother
May 12, 2013 Kitchen Table Anecdotes, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes
Morning Silliness (A Kitchen Table Anecdote)
©By Vijaya Sundaram
May 12th, 2013
(Cross-posted on my FB page, because I really didn’t have time for a special blog-post this morning, nor any yesterday, it being a morning-to-midnight full day out of the house yesterday):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A few minutes ago, at the kitchen table, a scene that was strangely satisfying to me (as you can see, my life is seriously lacking in entertainment!):
W (my husband, after I teased him about something): You never let me have ANY fun. You mock me in my infirmity.
(S, our daughter, is watching seriously, not sure whether he and I are being serious or not)
Moi: Never. I never want you to have ANY fun. And besides, (randomly) you cannot say “miaow” like a cat.
W (in a horribly deep, stentorian voice, because he REALLY cannot mew): MERWWOWW!
Moi (Collapsing with laughter): Choke! Gurgle! Snork!
S (getting it and joining in the horrible hilarity at poor husband — I know, I know, we’re terrible!): You sound like a begruddled cat, Dad!
Warren and I, not in unison: Wow! That’s great! Disgruntled and befuddled.
Moi: Get me to the InterTubes!
W: Our child is a neologist!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Daughter, #Father, Family silliness, kitchen table anecdotes, mother, neologisms
Apr 17, 2013 Uncategorized
Spring, in Pigtails
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 17th, 2013
The sun shone, jubilant, joyous, gold.
The grass was new-born, bursting forth
Like song from pursed, pinched lips.
The sky shone cold-blue, flooded with warmth
The children played on slide and swing.
I sat and watched my little girl
Racing about, her beauty breaking through
Like Spring between the cracks in the
Winter-clutched sidewalks.
Italian ice, lemon and watermelon,
Cold water chasing it down,
Brought sweetness and surprise.
Flinging herself into the air,
Her Groovy Girl Doll(Nicole)’s
Sheer joie de vivre, matched
My little girl’s, her pigtails flying.
And these:
My pink and blue-clad child,
Flying about, glee-filled, singing.
Reminding me that this is life.
Dogs surging about, teenagers skipping
Parents calling, sunshine dripping
Down on my upturned face.
And for a moment, grief and rage
Scudded away, clouds driven by sun
Into a corner of the sky.
And in that moment, peace bloomed
And momentary joys took root.
Of these, are our memories made.
Upon these, are our lives built.
Today was beautiful,
And I was glad.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Daughter, #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, #Spring, Happiness, Italian Ice, Joie de Vivre, Playground, sunshine