day/break/out

Daylight--it wounds the sky, gashes the clouds
--a jail/a madhouse would feel like a vacation
today. J/K; joke! I'm timid, presumptive
 
I send a few glances out--sort of as envoys,
like lighting small candles everywhere 
as though entertaining--protest

I think my mother once had hands like mine,
to measure submission as it crept up on us
--in the flicker of a lazy lizard eye

In my head, I just want to keep assembling 

these lines, ironically, un-wrinkling words

I don't know--back into distraction

____________________________

Meme from Twitter; TBH, the day is as gray as this picture.

combat landscape

these shapes of things we thought of

when wet and swampy from birthing

imprint on us bossily--love or neglect

the effects of hurt and genius and dirt

yet it feels like power--this waking up

making ourselves anew for each day

remembering how you would catch me

when I spilled over like a careless drink

now spent things colored big and blue

as bruises have swollen shut the doors

to all the places we've ever left behind

so in our minds, we recount loss all day

 

say: can you hear me--1, 2, 3;  I, 2, 3--?

faraway and wingless, yet needing to be 

we sift sight and experience: for our eyes

see forts while our hands feel for forests

promise

this is where i will love you

this is how you're spoken for

i will surround you with care

i will celebrate you with song

you will be stronger for my love

all i say to you will be only kind

you will know you are important 

find comfort when you "just can't"

we'll still need the earth for this body

as we fill the sky with soul and dreams

if they fall into a net, i'll make you a nest 

even should you falter, i'll believe in your best

Mostly a promise to anyone who needs it, even if it's mostly me. 

The nice things I've done for myself recently (pedestrian objects alert) is (a) get toothbrushes with tiny heads--perhaps they don't renovate my mouth, hasten world peace, etc., but they also don't constantly bump up against my gums and teeth; (b) get sporks--so easy to use esp. when multitasking and all the better for cleaning my plate/bowl.

"alone in a world so cold"

the world changes in the next line 
not in a full way/just kidding
but I summon/succumb

start assuming our story as reality--
no--a fantasy--something festal 
--or elastic as seasons

and still--don't know where I'm going
but I'm going and I'm arriving
where you will embrace me

-----------------------------------

On this windy, spring day: At graduated today with honors in Poli Sci and History. Jim Daniels as commencement speaker was a pleasant surprise.

limen

every dead thing is sainted 
even if impermanent 

as sadness, staining breath,
straining glass

while our faces sigh into it--
an empty staircase 
of smoke, of panic, prayer 
rising, now howling

"open the door, open it"
gasping, holding on

to memories, remembering 

doors used to open

Arundhati Roy: "We are witnessing a crime against humanity"

scraps

I expected fanfare at sunrise

instead here is an aperture 

into resurrection

in immense welcome of it all

yolk of sun, soup of soil

feed the taste of return

solving the mystery of missing

things by... just growing in

limbs uncurling out

freed from winter's quarantine 

in the drama of the moment

rests a dirge for the day

[Ely Woods]

unsee, undo

The urn, a yearning
pressed into bruise
into battle

I know this word, I 
mouthed it until I 
learned its taste 

Save me;  save my 
past--words, bring 
me to rest

My heart breaks and breaks and breaks: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/21/system-has-collapsed-india-descent-into-covid-hell 

Breath Song

Your breath's so imprecise in meaning
I can barely make sense as it swells
like lichen or love, the secrets it tells 

in its hard-earned and happy prison

Drawn between its vague borders

I learn by tracing the link of veins--

times, tie them to how you hold me 

sweet/safe for a heart-beat/a life-time 

[Picture from my perch where I was reading in the afternoon sun; wearing a faded, stained--but still favorited--summer blouse; marveling how the cherry blossoms are here practically overnight.]

Furrow

I might meet you in the street

"wait, wait" you might say
kneeling right there 
in the cleavage
of the year
so honest

pouring beauty
rubbing my belly 
keeping full the promise 
soon scrambling across my face

[Day 100 of 2021; Baker Woods with L this morning.]

tiny observation

somedays just can't contain
all the budding--

new/s shoots 

insane: email says everyone

is sick with the virus

/vaccination shots

[Pic: greening in Baker Woods]

Now

a suddenly unscripted day
disappointment like a slap
the window yawns 
alive--also awake

summing up the end of day 
admitting only small things
the clasp of malaise
the wake of a stare

for my old, younger self 
the rest is baited prayer 
speaking forever
holding peace

in time

a body rises like an ocean 
willing like magic
identity shifts and orbits
--another trick

a star/stare, what will it mean
to you, to me

if only it could move a prayer
to open actuality

time cheats, you know how
we try to scribble it
here we are; there we go--
still hurt, counterfeit

-------------------------------

At (in Michigan) and my sister (in Bangalore) both received their vaccination #1 today; yay!

Daffodils Etc.

It's spring in England, and my mother visits,

she is Seeing England for the First Time.

So there is her readiness in colonial desire 

like urgent rain--where squandered things 

find great reception. Electronic billboards! 

Gargoyles in Oxford! Museums are free!

Hunger satisfies easy when you're eager.

Until one day at the grocery checkout she sees

daffodils--papery, plastic-wrapped, "solitary"

not a "never-ending line," "dancing," or "gay."

And Amma--at least a third-generation learner 

of Wordsworth's praise--is first silent in disdain,

her outstretched words rebound as if swindled:

"This? This is what he made such a fuss about?"

In her contempt, I hear comparisons--to the

languor of unkempt jasmine, lotus, plumeria... 

the warm, unlocked softnesses of oleanders, 

parijaths, ixoras... In her derision there hides 

history's list of pain, the sharp bite of the ruler 

when she couldn't say "jocund" right (at least).

And Babu: fish and chips were disappointing too.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I first wrote about Amma's reaction here--so many years ago.

Picture is from Daffodil Hill at the Radiology Gardens earlier this week; they seem to have been bigger this time last year?

An Early Spring

L says the trees are wading into the water

and they are

the flood comes and goes without us seeing

how it does

we have few cues, shivering when we want 

when-ever

feeling a bit skinless, thinking that's not it

no, not it

we have watched our friends say goodbye

but saw

only their backs, so who it was that waved

we won't know. 

But a pattern of plummeting birds now coats 

our skin 

making us a festival of play and shining and

wildness--

jubilee and jamboree and carnival and revelry

every where

A festivity so full of possibilities, children

just listen

the communion now begins--a bit uncertain 

in origin

speaking to you from over there... not there

...there!

Opening

cradled high like loneliness
two nests in a spring sky--
made it through a winter
by dreaming of breath

how will I deserve this love

these fingers on my face

budding, open, waiting

for a return caress

let me throw out this light

let me only love everyone

I can hold out my hand--

you could say: yes

Way

One way: I watch you ask 

each hunger for a name, 
then stay masked

and shy away
 

One more way to your woe
from the jinx of diaspora
its sudden tomorrows

and kind decay

They say the universe's

reasons are mysterious
but that's not reason--
so... anyway

---------------------

I made myself go outside for half-an-hour this afternoon because it looked so beautiful and temps were all the way up in the 60s. It was lovely. I watched cardinals and robins and finches drinking from the pond... The water looks so dank; I'm a bit worried for them. 

Mothering

Scout finds his water dish 

empty, he reminds me to 

fill it by batting it around.

Like every other toddler 

he eagerly loses himself

in all the glorious noise:

he's cocking his head

and bouncing his dish--

my little drummer pup.

Now I bring him 

a new bowl of water 

and he flings himself

into it, lapping, slurping, 

I'm stroking his head,

and my old body forgets 

it did not birth him--breasts 

spread like wings, tingling

like they did when I fed babies. 

An Equinox

 

I am everything today
I have broken the day
I have baptized plants
I have balanced time
on top of a tiny cloud

I have bled from anger
broken all our sorrows
O child--I have bitten
truth from my tongue
waiting for your love 

[My birthday plants--roses from LB, orchid from EM--are blooming!]

Evening

I relive volumes about preserving all these hours
as though a summer's worth of sweetness swims

under the surface in the hopeful brine of memory. 

What if there are instructions to make the moment?

What if I practiced each moment before it came--

in the long, lonely present, folding in love, alone...

Open to my destiny as a nomad in this desired body,
understanding? O, I would say in wonder and dismay, 

returning over and over again like a peal of laughter.

Arrangement

I am buttoned tight inside a world

made mostly of sounds and words

for my name will soon get forgotten

you may add small tears to the sea,
to the wind, all the liminal seasons
don't wear out my name with wails

I started my own tribe of wanderers 
who'll need my name for new ways,

promises, festivals, and kindnesses