Apr 4, 2013 Original Poetry, Teaching and Learning

Teacher: A Glimpse As I Passed By
(For Val)
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 4, 2013

Almost in the abyss,
A young boy howls in
Soul-agony, a torment
That he cannot understand.
He sobs, beast-desolate
In the hallway, uncluttered
By others.  

I approach,
And see this:
Kindly teacher,
Clad in blue
Pats him gently,
Inexpressibly kind.

“It’ll be all right.
You’ll be fine.”
Her voice like soothing
Balm in Gilead,
Pours solace on his
Strange, wounded mind.
(For he is undeniably
Different from the others.)

Her goodness, a candle
Steady in his darkness,
Completely undoes him.
I walk by, heading elsewhere,
And try not to intrude.

He howls louder,
Lurches against her.
She hugs him with such love —
A well-spring
Of love, she is
An angel of beauty
An angel of warmth
Goodness glowing golden,
Like an energy-field
Around her.

All the comfort he needs
He finds right here,
In her enveloping frame
All the goodness nestled
In the encircling warmth
Of her motherly embrace.

And no matter what this child
Suffered today, whatever else
Torments, grips and twists
His grief-stricken heart,
He will remember this:

When he was most
Desolate and undone,
When he was most
Alone and abyssal,
There was someone.

And she leaned
Over the abyss
Plucked him up,
And brought him back
From the brink.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #kindness, #Loneliness, #Love, #NaPoWriMo, Abyss, Autistic Spectrum, Brink, Comfort, Education with soul, Goodness, grief, Misery, Saving, Special Education Student, teacher, Teaching the young

Apr 3, 2013 Original Poetry, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes

Catapult – A Poem

©By Vijaya Sundaram

I watch the sun’s beckoning fingers

Inviting my daughter and me to go out

And play.  The lure is undeniable.

I resist, resolutely.  I shall not go out.

No, I shall not.  I want to be lumpen.

My plea?  Too tired.  Too worn out.

Not for me the beautiful sun

Nor for me the brisk air 

Of near-Spring, teetering

At the edge of winter,

Still tilted in Winter’s wake.

I insist on staying indoors, always

The rebel against that which is good for me.

I used to be good, you know.

I was good.  I looked good.

I was young and aware of it. 

So, I carefully did these:

Walk, eat right, count my calories,

Be healthy, do lunges and stretches.

Now, un-Cinderella-like, with the years

Flown by, I find that I’ve turned

Into a pumpkin, and do not mind.

My daughter doesn’t mind that we are home.

She’s had her sun-stint earlier today,

With loving and dutiful Dad.

She played with Bella, a beautiful dog

She romped about

On  wood-chips and grass,

Happy to be almost at Spring’s door.

I wasn’t there.  I was told the bare

Details: Playground, dog, Bella, romping.

But I might have been there.

I saw them all, clearly.

For I hallucinate scenes

Clear as day, scenes which move

Like movies of yore, slow long

Camera angles and panning.

I see everything:  My child,

Bella the dog, her fond owner,

My fond husband watching our daughter

Adore the dog, and the blue, blue sky above.

I hallucinate most things (but I know

It’s in my mind), because the stories

Always unfold thus, and all the colors are

Extra-saturated and brighter than real.

Now, as I watch, bemused, nonplussed,

My daughter prances about the house

Cat-faced, with a mask she made herself.

Cow-like, she moos, then cat-like, she slinks

Towards me, catapulting into my arms.

Stunned, I allow myself

To be borne away on the wave of her

Eight-year old magic.

Once, she asked me:

Would you love me if I were a boy?

I shall always love you.

Would you love me less if I were a teenager?

I shall always love you.

Can I stay with you and Dad forever?

I shall always love you.

I love you, Mom!

I shall always love you.

 

“I don’t want to grow up,” she states

Seriously, full of purpose and intent.

“I won’t!  I want to stay a kid

Forever, and be free.”

Part of me agrees.

Another part says,

What of the you who’s waiting to be?

But for now, we stay far from the catapult

Which flings us into the distant future.

Time enough for growing up.

For right now, a child of eight

Claims my entire attention

And dances in the spotlight

Of my love for her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Childhood, #Daughter, #Life, #Love, #Mask, #Mother and Daughter, #NaPoWriMo, catapult, dog interactions, future, Growing up, innocence, Play, Playground

Mar 30, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Character Vignettes for Possible Novels, Original Short Stories

Loneliness — A Vignette

©By Vijaya Sundaram

March 30th, 2013

The old woman sat, enshrouded in sadness and loneliness.

Her spirit was young, gay, schoolgirilish.  Her mind was brilliant, but old.  Her heart was carunculated, folded over and over by memories of grief, loss, hatred, jealousy and despair.  Her body, though old, was strong, and her face was beautiful, like a translucent paper-covered lamp.

She had always been on the outside looking in.  She had never fully understood herself.  She understood others, but as an alien might, through long observation, experimentation, attempts to blend in with the locals, and even achieving a measure of success in that, but always with a sense of strange isolation.  Humor and a biting wit had sustained her through all that.  Faith gave her some comfort, but her mind always interfered.

She was generous with her gifts, but longed for acknowledgement, which she felt she had never got, at least, not enough.

She took care of herself, never imposed on anyone, was independent, hard-working, good and moral.  She gave of herself to all who came to her.  She sought, and got, contradictions, arguments, verbal sparring.  She loved that, but didn’t understand that it distressed others.  She was often critical, very critical of others, because no one could match her standards, not even she.  This left her feeling desolate and always dissatisfied.

She could never stand anyone for too long.  People irked her.  They felt like burrs on her clothing, clinging madly, like little irritants, feeling poky and interfering.  Yet, it was she who would long for their company, and would ask for it.  Now, they bothered her at every turn.  She felt as if they interfered, but it was she who interfered when she had a chance to, correcting others, expecting a weird sort of subservience, and hating it at the same time, positively glowing with impish delight when she caused distress of some kind, or disturbed people’s equanimity.

She was a mass of contradictions: A pillow stuffed with confidence and anxieties, pleasures and sorrows, losses and grief, indifference, affection, detachment and attachment, delight and irritation, love and hate.

And she was the loneliest person on the planet.  Always, in her mind, her own dead mother’s voice spoke, critical and caustic, seemingly unloving and cold with a Puritan coldness.

The tragedy was that the old lady didn’t love herself.  And though she felt herself to be the loneliest person on the planet, she was loved.  She just didn’t fully know it, and always rejected a little while after she encountered it.  After all, or so it seemed to her, if others loved her, then they didn’t really have any good taste, because she was unlovable.  Therefore, she could reject them with ease.

Now, in the closing darkness of the noon, she longed again to be understood.  She called her son, and got her daughter-in-law.

Her daughter-in-law, inexplicably, loved her.  They both loved one other, even though they each might have got on the other’s nerves from time to time.  They spoke.  The old lady stated her thoughts about what she had been through recently.  Her daughter-in-law assured her that everything would be all right, and reassured her of the love of her children for her.  After a few sweet reminiscences about other things, the old lady said goodbye and hung up.

And after that ‘phone call, the daughter-in-law knew this much:  Her mother-in-law had achieved a lot in her life, but all that had faded away with the onset of years. Age is a thief, an inexorable, ruthless and hateful thief.  It takes away and takes away.  When the daughter-in-law was young, she thought it would be lovely to grow old.  Perhaps, for some, it might be, but she saw, first-hand that this romanticising of age was just that: A romantic notion.  Age was cruel.  Loneliness looms large.  Loss and sadness linger.

For the sad truth remains:  All of one’s achievements are naught beside the huge, pervasive threat of imminent amnesia and death.

So it is with the old lady, and so it will be for all of us, except, perhaps, those who seek immortality through art and music, because, as Nabokov said about Lolita in his immortal, shocking, dark and deeply moving book:  I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality that you and I may share, my Lolita.

Finally, this:  Ozymandias by P.B. Shelley.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Age, #Death, #Loneliness, #Love, Amnesia, Despair, immortality through art, Long Life, Nabokov, Ozymandias

Mar 21, 2013 Uncategorized

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Legion, One – A Poem
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 21, 2013

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How important
How very important
You believe you are, human!
You strut around, chest puffed out,
Dying by degrees, thinking this is life.

You reject and mock
Your neighbor or colleague
With a single statement.
With a curl of the lip,
Your sneer at and spurn your neighbor,
Your teacher, friend, stranger.

With the dismissive gesture,
You dash to the ground
All that your mother, your sister
Gave to you.
With the merest word, you crush
The memory of all
Your brother, or your father
Are to you.

Fattening on hate and fear,
Not knowing, not caring,
Not seeing that it is you.
It is you, you, dear one
Whom you crush underfoot,
Sneer at, mock, reject.
Fearing, dismissing, crushing,
You don’t see the faces
Of those you spurn.

And all the while, you yearn
To be understood, crooned to,
Cradled, sheltered, loved,
Healed, nursed back to yourself.
And all the while, you yearn
For that dream-world, asking
How come and wherefore
Has it not arrived, yet?

Stop!  Stop!  Stop!  
I tell you!
Stop hating.
Stop fearing.
Stop envying.
Stop feeling less.
Start feeling more.

Feel more for
Your neighbor,
Your colleague,
Your friend, sister, brother
Father, teacher, mother.

Feel the same pain
We were born into.
Feel the same sorrow
We face every day.
Feel the despair
That lies, curled
At the very base
Of everyone’s souls.

And walk softly.
Tread softly, dear one.
Tread lightly, for it is
Your face that you tread
Upon, your face you seek
To obliterate.

And it is when you raise
Up your sister, brother, mother
Father, teacher, friend,
Neighbor, colleague, stranger,
Bathe their faces,
Wash their wounds,
Offer them kindness,
Marvel at their unique
Ineffable beauty, their grace,
And their anguished suffering,
It is then that you shall be free.

Know this,
For we are all legion.
But we are all one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Death, #Love, #Original Poetry, Despair, Eternity, Legion, Neighbor, Raise Up, We are all One, Words and Silence

Mar 20, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries

Food is Good — A Meditation Upon Humanity

©By Vijaya Sundaram

Published on March 20th, 2013

I am always amazed and grateful that there is so much good food in the world, and yet people starve.  Soul-crushing tyrannies, rampant capitalism, war, famine, flood, indifference … All of the hatefulness of humans conspire to keep people hungry in so many parts of the world — it’s a matter of intense shame to me.

If you have food, share it.

If you have the time, feed people.

If you have the money to spare, give it to the starving, the weak, the poor.

There is no excuse for indifference.

Don’t moralize piously about how the poor, the weak and the hungry should work for food.

Give them food FIRST!

Try working on an empty stomach — after many days of not eating.

How easy it is for you to prate on and on about how the poor expect handouts!  What about you?  You got plenty, only it came in the form of unquestioned privilege.

It is as simple as this:  Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, tend to the sick, offer love to all living creatures.  Leave, don’t take.

You don’t need religion to tell you this–you need what my mother would term “manusha thanmai” — a sense of humanity.

It is this, and only this which will save us all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #humanity, #Ishmael, #Love, Daniel Quinn, Feed the Poor, Food, Gandhian Socialism, Sharing