Jun 12, 2016 Free Verse, The Daily Post
Gentle Rain
©June 11th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Today, in the cool, gray light
Saturated with rain-damp
Happy to be alive and agile,
I shoveled rich, dark earth,
And cleaned out planters
With my husband and daughter.
Later, as I planted kale seeds so tiny
And celery and mustard, as small
And poblano peppers, I felt
A rush of maternal love.
I knew my small yard better now,
Having nourished and blessed
The womb of the sweet, clean soil,
Having walked its farthest edges,
Having weeded, and prepared beds,
Having watched over and watered
(With some anxiety, but mostly pleasure).
I could smell the sweetness of it all.
I saw little worms and blessed them,
And when chipmunks dashed behind stones
I loved them with a simple love.
And though all I’d done was prepare plant-beds,
Water and seed and pull up weeds,
I felt proud of the peas, the beans
The tatsoi, and lettuce, and beets all poking out,
Some growing faster, others more slowly.
Such hard work – all this growing they do!
And I was grateful to all my sweet flowers
And all the herbs that make the air sweet:
My lavender, mint, and oregano
All rich and swooning with fragrance.
To play in the dirt, and be rewarded
When things grow and reach for the light
When the air is glad with green,
And when a deep languor, a lassitude
Pours slowly down my blood-stream
Like heavy honey –
This is simplicity.
And today, I was happy for this:
This temple under a vaulting sky
Which bent over our bent forms,
As we worked, and blessed us
With a dispassionate blessing,
As gentle rain fell.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Simplicity, #TheDailyPost
Jun 10, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Of Molehills and Mountains
©June 10th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
I made a molehill.
Tunneled under it.
Made a cozy nest.
I named it “Mountain.”
Then, bravely facing
The Eastern sky, I
Climbed it, scaling
It in a single bound.
Sure, it was easy, but
I did scale a Mountain.
What’s in a name?
A molehill by any other name,
Would be as easy to scale.
Now, I’m off to find a mountain.
I shall name it “Molehill.”
It’ll be much easier to climb, then,
Though I shall probably fall
As the Western sky flames red.
And if I do, I shall pick myself up
And say, I’m making a molehill
Out of a mountain.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #making a mountain out of a molehill, #Mountain, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #TheDailyPost
Jun 10, 2016 Haiku, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Metamorphosis
©June 9th, past midnight, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Cocooned universe
Space folded in on itself
A new world is born.
Somewhere, the dry husk
Of the old universe breaks
Sweet butterfly world!
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #TheDailyPost, #Transformation
Jun 8, 2016 Ramblings and Musings, The Daily Post
Mostly, I don’t get embarrassed.
When I do, I shrug it off.
So what if you’re wearing mismatched clothes, or your shirt is inside out?
I’ve done it too many times in my youth and middle age to care one whit.
So what if you order vegetables au gratin at age 16, because you could pronounce it, liked the sound of it, and (perhaps) wanted to impress the rich and stylish college students you’re with, at the posh restaurant in Madras to which you’d been only once or twice before, and then literally blanch when they bring you a horrible-looking creamy stew with some dead vegetables floating in it?
Well, I saw them exchange sly glances at each other, and said to myself, “These are not my people,” then suffered my way through the awful food, and the awful evening, and fled home in relief to my loving parents.
So what if you’re standing there on stage, solo, without your rock group (which couldn’t make it for that Inter-Collegiate competition, due to schedule issues) guitar in hand, earnestly two-plaited, and you’re the only female there, and they boo, because it’s a male chauvinist crowd at an engineering college?
I simply held up my hand, and waited. When they stopped, I sang. Then, they cheered themselves hoarse. One simply has to wait out the bullies in such public cases. I think back now, and wonder how I wasn’t petrified with fright. I must have been completely immune to fear at that moment. Also, I didn’t care about the outcome. I knew they were being pigs. I didn’t get embarrassed being the only female to perform on that stage. It helped that I won the Best Vocalist prize.
So what if you’re standing in front of a crowd of two thousand, all rooting for you and your band, and you forget the words to the song just after you, as band leader, finished the count off?
Well, I simply grinned and said, “Oops … hang on, I’ve forgotten how it starts,” and they hung on silently, and I waited until the words floated back into my head. (Oh, and they cheered themselves hoarse, and we won the first prize).
So what if you the play for which you (as a first year, totally new, 8th Grade teacher) composed the music, did the directing, and for which the students from the last period class worked hard, fell apart because the main actor, brilliant but thoroughly spoiled, ill-prepared and bratty, forgot his lines, ran off stage, ran back in again, then sat on the bed, which fell down, whereupon he ran off again, and had to be persuaded to return?
My students and I simply ploughed on. At least our little music section did well. And the play’s message got through. We even got a few nice words and emails from students and teachers, despite the main actor’s disastrous entries and exits onto and off stage. And that was that.
But then, my embarrassing moments have been few and far between. Sometimes I wish I’d had a few more, then I could make a nice after-dinner story out of them! My husband does, and his stories are brilliant.
The older I get, the more I find that embarrassment is pointless. If a situation is a social disaster, turn it into a story, or, at the very least, embrace the embarrassment caused by it.
In any case, once enough time has passed, no one will know.
And then, in a few billennia, we shall all turn into pieces of explosive space-dust floating about, unembarrassed about being a few hydrogen or helium atoms short of a full-fledged star.
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Embarrassing
Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Embarrassing, #TheDailyPost
Jun 7, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Dot Matrix
©June7th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Here’s a dot, see?
And there’s one.
Quick, draw a line!
Resembles nothing much.
Now, see this one?
And that one?
Quick, draw another line!
Still, nothing much.
Do the same, draw lines from A to B,
From one bright dot to another,
All scattered chaotically across
This sublunar sun-bashed place!
Something seems to emerge.
Stand back and take a good, long look.
What do you see?
Was it what you wanted to see?
Or something you never imagined?
Was this the image you dreamed of?
No? Step back, stand aside.
Let us see with our own eyes.
Ah, you got an ape,
Arms low to the ground,
Brow furrowed and low,
Grief in his hirsute visage.
He’s looking up wide-eyed
Fearful, dreaming, while
Brilliant, icy spears of light
Pierce the night air, and he’s
Caught in the tug between
Confusion and desire.
Welcome to humanity!
You’ve connected the dots.
The stars await you.
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*I use the term matrix in two different ways, and one of them means “breeding female,” from the Latin word for mother, i.e. “mater.”
And, of course, anyone who dealt with computers in the 80s and early 90s knows what a dot matrix printer is.
Tags: #Connected, #DailyPrompt, #Dot Matrix, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #TheDailyPost
Jun 6, 2016 Original Poetry, The Daily Post
The Play Within a Play
©June 6th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Like a streak of madness
My dog chases her ball.
The sun shines down laughing,
And the meadow’s ablaze in
Green-gold exuberance.
And all the dogs leap about
In the pure pursuit of fun.
My dog always finds her ball.
And when she brings it to me,
Grinning in pure playfulness,
With no thoughts beyond
The pleasure of retrieving it,
I think:
If I could chase my dreams
Likewise, and find them
And bring them home,
Without over-reach,
With single-mindedness,
With pure pleasure
I would consider this play,
– This play of my life,
One in which the script
And the fun of it, match –
Well worth the running
And chasing, and the
Happy home-coming.
But in the meantime,
I watch my dog and her play,
And I am well-content.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Playful, #TheDailyPost
Jun 5, 2016 Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Smooth
©June 5th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Smooth is the silk that lies on her skin
Smooth is the skin of her face
Smooth is the glass that holds her songs in
While smoothly she smiles with grace
Smooth is the rain that slides down the pane
Smooth is the air that she breathes
Smooth is the moon that’s on the wane
Smooth are the cares that she sheathes.
Smooth is the talker who speaks her fair
Smooth is his winning smile
Smooth is the walker who walks her where
She followed for many a mile.
Smoother still are his loving words
Smooth as a gentle breeze
But smoothest yet are her songs unheard
Which wait for their release.
On wings of song as she smoothly glides
He’ll hear the voice of the skies
He’ll love with a love that won’t be denied
Stay true till the day she dies.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Smooth, #TheDailyPost
Jun 5, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Marble and Sand
©June 5th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
You hold your future lightly,
A glowing marble in the sun,
And watch it glitter.
And you twirl it about
Peering at it, curious,
Eager to get on with things.
Then, tossing it lightly aside,
You skip away, light-hearted –
A whole Now awaits you.
So much to do, so much to taste:
Read and sing, and laugh
And draw, and learn, and oh!
Such mindless joy, such joyful mind!
Rope-skip, hop-scotch, climbing trees,
Rowing imaginary boats with a best friend,
Becoming a merman (or mermaid),
Swimming to an islands, avoiding the Beast,
Your vast school playground an entire
Ocean to swim in.
Occasionally, you hold
That marble and gaze,
As at a crystal ball,
Mesmerized by what you see.
Do you see me in there –
Older, wiser (maybe), tired
Not jaded (well, sometimes),
Dreaming, always dreaming?
Or, do you shrug lightly,
As time turns to eat its tail?
Do you play endlessly, all chaos
And movement, shouts and
Ringing laughter – pure energy
On the receding shores
Of the shifting sands of your
Eternal, illuminated, sunlit,
Magical, singing childhood?
And all the while, a glinting marble
Lies buried in the sand, quiescent,
Patient, ready to be picked up later,
Because the Future can wait.
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Tags: #Childhood, #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #TheDailyPost
Jun 4, 2016 Haiku, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Digambara
©June 3rd, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
The trees judge all things.
Moral arbiters of men,
Breathing quietly.
The sky pouring light,
Cloud-blue, and indifferent,
Rolls around the earth.
Standing there, quite free
Shameless and glad, he drinks air,
The sky enfolds him.
Sky-clad, he stands tall.
Chancing upon him, in fright,
Woman and dog flee.
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Tags: #DailyPost, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Sky, #TheDailyPost
Jun 3, 2016 Ramblings and Musings, The Daily Post
Purposefully Drifting
©June 2nd, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
My purposes leap through the air, make a big splash, and then vanish into the depths.
My purposes live in big pods.
Purpods.
My purposes signal each other.
My purposes breed at a gentle pace.
However, soon, unless an orca disrupter, all or-chaos and teeth, a veritable killer of purposes, shows up, my purposes might become too thick, and lacking space, might self-destruct.
Better to have fewer purposes.
Yes, far better!
Right now, my purpose is to eat and drift purposely along, leaping into action every now and then, showing off my various beautiful features.
This eating and drifting might assist me in attaining that rotund shape that all purposes allow.
Orcassionally, however, all those purposes come to naught. It’s been a fluke, folks!
That’s it for now!
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In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Purpose
Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Humour of a sort, #PorpoisesandPurposes, #TheDailyPost