May 12, 2015 Uncategorized
Becoming a Balloon
©May 12th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Detaching from something is a curious sensation,
Sad and joyful, exhilarating, downcasting.
Liberation can be scary. Who wants to be free?
Is this why so many of us choose our own brand of slavery?
Better to be attached to something, anything, than to float away, unmourned, forgotten.
Is that it?
I would like to be a balloon.
Yes, a balloon is what I want to be
I want to fill with something lighter than air,
A thin membrane separating me from
Complete dissipation.
And, bringing joy to a child’s life, or an adult’s,
I will let myself be held lightly by a hand or two.
And then, let the winds tug at me,
Snap me loose from the hands that hold me,
And float away, so quietly, so softly,
I won’t hurt any bird, I promise,
Nor trouble any airplane’s engines.
Just float away, that’s what I’d like to do,
Until I reach the moon, or become one.
Tags: #Original Poetry, Balloon, detachment, Floating away, Lighter than air
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