Feb 10, 2018 Daily Life, Original Poetry

In The Nursing Home
©February 10th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram

I have no words tonight,
None that would suffice, anyway.
I want to be pure and simple –
Simple in thought, word and deed.
The humming of the world increases
In this room, this bed, this confined space.

A lifetime can be summed up thus:
I lived, grew older, fell, moved, died.
Perhaps, the world was changed by me
Perhaps, I was changed by it.
It matters not, not now.  At present,
I am content-not content with these:

This bar of chocolate, this clementine,
These earrings, this necklace, this ancient
Gold watch that belonged to my mother’s mother,
That ring, my mother’s engagement ring,
These paintings, full of life and colour,
And talent – mine, my joy in seeing beauty –

These reminders of someone, a stranger
Who lived long ago, vibrant and witty,
Full of ambition and love of poetry,
Pretty and scholarly, and generous
Sarcastic, hurtful, loved, but not always liked,
Always striving to do what was right.

Rain comes down like regret,
And I forget why, although I weep.
The silent woman seated in the other bed
Speaks, and is silent again, staring fixedly at
The silent television, its screen dark.
Perhaps, it’s raining where she sits, too.
__________________________________________________________________

Tags: #Futility, #VisitingMotherinLawinNursingHome, #Waiting

Mar 5, 2016 Tanka

Today, a Cold Sun (Tanka #1)
©March 5th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Today, a cold sun
Breaks upon my window-pane.
Shards of blue scatter.

I sit mute, keys a-tapping,
Awaiting winter or spring.

____________________________________________

Tags: #Original Poetry, #Waiting

Jun 4, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries

Frisson
©By Vijaya Sundaram
June 4th, 2013

There have been about eight times when I felt like what I’m feeling now, and I became conscious of that the first time when I was ten years of age.

There was a thrill, a frisson, if you will, of quiet anticipation, of the sense of mysteries and adventures to come.  And they did. 

Hinges, they were.  Things turned on those hinges.  Doors opened and closed, avenues bloomed before my wondering eyes, horizons unfolded, mountains gave definition to the skies, window frames gave meaning to what lay outside.  “Excitement” is too mundane a word to capture this bubbling undercurrent of quiet, tightly-contained feeling.

New ideas, new people, new expectations, new challenges, new ways of being, new kinds of hard work, new learning came on the heels of this frisson.

I’m not sure whether the frisson caused the changes, or a glimpse I had of the future caused it.  What does it matter if one caused the other or the other caused the one?

Things had been quiescent for me, these past few years — not so now.

Not sure what the next decade will bring.  All I know is that they have to be different from what they’ve been recently.

For the frisson is back.  And I cannot bear the waiting.

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

Tags: #Waiting, excitement, frisson, future, glimpse of one's future

Apr 25, 2013 Original Poetry

Abandoning
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 25th, 2013

At the moment of abandoning all,
One feels relief.
Like dropping one’s backpack
And troubles at the door
When one comes home from school.
Or unhooking that bra
And tossing it over a chair
And sinking, boneless
Into the same chair,
Staring, slack-jawed
And unambitiously into
A happy space.

Or like dumping a job that
Has grown like a forest
All around one’s body,
With clinging vines and
Dark underbrush, with
Snakes crawling about.

At the moment of abandoning all,
One feels relief.
If only that feeling
Could sustain itself over the ache
And terror, or weariness
And more tasks
That are sure
To follow!

It’s a sister to that other feeling:
Falling in love.
Dizzying and breathless
Heart-bursting and
Empty-stomached,
Weightless, feathery
In a buffeting wind.
Or like a blazing fire
That starts with a little match
Match-making!

If only that feeling
Could sustain its white-hot
Fire, over the cooling winds
That follow!

It’s a brother to that other feeling:
That of letting go of life,
And whirling, leaf-like
Into blackness.
Weightless again,
Whirling, wind-tossed
Orphaned by life,
Plummeting slowly
And leisurely into death.

If only one could sustain
That mad, exhilaration
That onrush of breathless
Heart-extinguishing
Joy over the vast
Unending desolation
That is sure to follow!

Perhaps, I just need
Some sunlight right now —
A light-hearted stepping out
Into the luminescent evening —
And chase away the shadows.
I know the shadows will wait.
That’s all right — I’m clever.
I can out-wait them.

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

Tags: #Death, #Life, #Love, #NaPoWriMo, #Waiting, Abandoning, letting go, patience, relief, sustain

Apr 19, 2013 Current Affairs / General Interest, Original Poetry

Whirlwind
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 19th 2013

Brother down. My brother down.

Could it be, could it possibly be
That guilt gnaws at his spine?

He sits there, crouched
In an anonymous room
Or backyard,
The incubus of death
Possibly trapped to his chest,
Making breath
Difficult, and making sobs
Harden into shrapnel.

He awaits the end,
Undecided about dying.
It’s clear he wishes
To leave on his own terms.
The fog comes and goes.
Mist along the alleyways
Of a labyrinthine mind.
Angelic face, dark eyes
Innocent and disarming,
Armed with what could
Only be a death-wish.

How can hatred catch such
A beautiful-seeming young man?
What does he think,
Crouched there, seeing
The faces of the innocents
Slain by the bombs that
His brother and he placed
In their bid for … what?

Who caught him when he
Grew up, far from parents,
Vulnerable to hateful words,
Prey to delusions of matyrdom
(For what else could it be,
But his need for such a terrible end?)

Did his life lack purpose?
Did his honor embrace darkness?
Did his heart get clutched
By loneliness and despair?
He had friends, they say.
So, why didn’t that save him?

A fog envelops the mind
Of the young man, as he
Awaits the raging
Firestorm he has begun.

For he knows, somewhere in
In his twisted soul, haunted
By an eight-year old’s smile,
(No more hurting people.
Peace.) that he is doomed.
Haunted by a beautiful Chinese student’s
Steadfast gaze, by a young Medford woman,
Twenty-nine years old, who
Served food and life to people,
He awaits his turn
At the grim table laid for him.

He has sown the wind,
Now, he will reap the whirlwind.
Before that, we want to know:
Why? Why?  Why? Why?

And even when he, shouting, answers,
Bitter and vengeful, or
Weeping and ashamed, or
Laughing and scornful, or
Guilt-racked and tormented,
We shall never find out.

And the whirlwind will carry
Away the shouted words,
And we know we can never get back Kansas again.

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

Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Waiting, Boston, Boston Marathon bombers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Reap the whirlwind, sadness, terror, We can never get back Kansas again