Aug 4, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry
Afternoon-Flight
©August 4th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Flash of blue sails across sun-drenched air.
Japanese maple stands, glad to receive bird
With open branches and dappled leaves.
Glints of gold on green and flutter of leaf and feather
Gently open my tight-breathing heart,
With its Elsewhere just a step away,
And pour in peace.
Blue-jay, harsh of voice, but oh, so grateful
For air and light and shelter!
Traffic sounds from far away, a soft reminder
Of human time.
But why remember it?
Time is a thief.
Human time is bondage time.
Bird-time is peace.
And tree-time, endless.
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Tags: #Birds, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Peace, #Time, #Trees
Mar 14, 2016 Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story
Paper Revenge – Fantasy Flash Fiction
©March 14th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
It was time to enter the world of the three-dimensional.
Stepping out into traffic, Papyra stood, her arms above her head.
The traffic screeched to a halt, but one car sailed through her.
Papyra walked on, naked and calm, to the other side.
On the street lay a pile of clothes, and a cardboard cutout of a woman.
The man who’d hit her jumped out of his car, while others, who had stopped as well, followed suit.
“What the hell was that?” asked a man, his face as white as a sheet.
“Dunno. Whatever it is, it’s GOT to be some kind of joke!” said another.
When two of them picked up the cardboard cutout, a curious change came over them, and they fell over, flat and colorless. A wind eddied up under them, and blew them into the clouds.
Another wind swirled up Papyra’s clothes, and brought them to her, as she watched from the shoulder of the road. Impassively, she shrugged them on, and, without a backward glance, walked into the woods nearby.
Cell-phone cameras clicked as she went, even as the people who took the pictures backed away from the scene of the hit-but-not-run.
When they looked at the pictures they’d taken, all they saw was a pile of drifting paper floating away.
The woman went into the woods, and embraced a tree, her tears like somebody shredding away at an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven. The tree shed some leaves, and she nodded.
Then, she went back into the street.
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Tags: #Trees, Paper, Weird Nature Fantasy Story
Mar 14, 2016 The Daily Post, Uncategorized
For The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Fleeting
Fleeting Nature – Haiku 3
©March 14th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Tall trees lose their seeds
Bolting in desperation
Premature birth-death.
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Tags: #Bolting too early, #Fleeting, #haiku, #Nature, #Original Poetry, #Trees, Climate Change
Jan 21, 2016 Original Poetry
All photographs©Vijaya Sundaram, 2015-2016
Change, Please
©January 22nd, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
I wonder about trees.
When I consider my life —
So short, so filled with futile
Railing against this and that,
Filled with pride and fall,
Gain and loss,
Wasted effort, and just waste,
I wonder about them.
When I sojourn in the woods,
And gaze about at all the trees
And the quiet, good life
They lead in shadow and sun
I whisper a blessing,
And sing to them.
So fixed, so full of change,
So clamorous, so quiet
So full of conversation,
They creak and groan,
And rustle, and grunt,
And moan and sigh
And break and bend,
And ache and crack,
And are rent asunder by
Cold so bitter, it hurts
To think on it.
I see them, gnarled
And full of exuberance,
Filled with sunlight,
Born of carbon.
Gods they are —
Not in a fairy tale story,
But right before us.
Tall and rooted and
Full of forgiveness.
Full of secrets, full of knowledge,
They speak with each other
Roots entwined, giving strength
To each other, to the ground,
And the fungi on the mossy earth
Carry their message of life far
Along unseen and seen trails.
With their breath, they gift us
Air and rain and wind.
With their secret seeds,
With their forbidden fruit,
With their singing leaves,
And their clutching branches,
With their purple shade
And their hidden places
Where life might grow,
Or come home to die,
They signal Love.
They change us.
And they die, and are born again,
And die again, and are born again.
And … thus,
They are our true gods.
Love them.
Kneel before them.
And before it’s too late,
Change.
Please.
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Tags: #Life, #Original Poetry by Vijaya Sundaram, #Trees, Woods
Jul 28, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Current Affairs / General Interest, Reading, Teaching and Learning, Thinking, Writing
And here we are, comfortable, with our little, daily stresses and cares, our worries, or work-related sorrows, or the baggage we carry from our lives.
And there they are, in Gaza, which is burning, with Israeli artillery strikes or misfired Hamas rockets.
Or in Baghdad, where Sunnis are being harassed by Shias.
Or, in Ukraine, where there are hundreds of civilian deaths, while governments fight for control in one direction or another.
This isn’t a world in which I wish to live.
And yet, life IS beautiful. And Life is Beautiful, too.
We MUST try and speak for beauty, for life, for love, for peace.
We MUST end the little stesses in our own lives by being non-reactive, thoughtful, calm and measured. (Of course, that’s easier said than done — but I’d like to try.)
Plant a garden of flowers, however small your yard is. If there’s no yard, make a window garden.
Plant some tomatoes and basil in a box outside your window sill.
Plant a tree in a park.
Read a book, or write one. Or, do both.
Teach a child to read a book or listen to music.
Write to your congressmen and congresswomen, and to your leaders.
Play music with your family, your friends, by yourself.
Play.
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Tags: #Trees, Baghdad, Gaza, Israel, life here and there, planting flowers, Playing, Playing music, reading, Teaching a child to read, Ukraine, vegetables, Writing