Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts

Friday, May 30, 2025

Ughs <--> Ohs

The NWSA proposal EM and I submitted together didn't get accepted, but the one I submitted by myself did. I wanted to go with her!

I ran out of moisturizer while traveling with the kids and sampled Nu's Vanicream, and it's a dream. It maybe the one thing Miranda July got right in All Fours. (That and the bit about dogs.)

I got my travel course evals--I got high marks, but very few comments. It would have been nice if some of the nice things people wrote in cards and emails were in the course evals--I'm up for assessment the year after next.

I got a copy of American Dirt by Jeanine Cummings from a Goodwill because a student (Hi, CW!) wanted to work on it. I expected to hate every minute of its appropriative voice... but have to say it's quite respectful and suspenseful.

A poetry anthology I have some poems in is now on Amazon and getting promoted heavily by the editors... and I'm worried my mom might see. I know she'll not like that I wrote about some of those topics.  

Pic: I watched this frog swim up to the little solar fountain like he was kid in summer camp swimming up to the buoy in the middle of the lake. Their name is Popchyk. (Big A is reading The Goldfinch on my recommendation and we talk about the puppy more than any other character.)

Sunday, May 25, 2025

"when the sky looks back at you"

Today was a free day in New Jersey, where we lived two decades ago. It doesn't look changed at all and I wish there was more time to go into NYC. I started messaging old friends for hanging out earlier in the week, and many were away for the long weekend, but I ended up setting up little dates with some.

But first breakfast with Daria! The conversation was nonstop, tripping over the many, many things we have in common--teaching, growing up in a different country, poetry... And things we don't--like Daria's love for camping. I loved how she described the night sky looking back at her when she is in her tent so much, it became the title of this post. Both Daria and I are spare writers--we rarely have posts that are pages long--but we chatted and laughed our way through 2-3 hours so easily. I really, really, really hope to meet Daria again. Maybe in Michigan? The Midwest? 

Another highlight was meeting PRS after years--we go back decades and she is likely the brainiest person I know and I love her so much. She is uncompromisingly honest, so when she says she is proud of me for building a home where my kids can chart "their comfort journeys home to themselves," it is something to truly treasure. She does not hesitate on calling me on my nonsense, and once I swallow my initial defensive responses, I can see where I can do better. PRS is writing full-time now--when we first met, she was doing something her parents wanted her to. I am so ready to see her long-form work in print. 

Pic: Beautiful Daria gave me this exqusite edition of Anna Akhmatova's poetry that I will treasure forever.

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

this is about everything

the world is different after rain 
its marrows open, singing, astonished
outlined in reflections and wet mirages

I mark myself in nothing now 
in the endless movement of trembling
meeting no resistance, passing through

only freckled with the dailiness 
of living and knowing we can wake up
like flowers opening their bright mouths
_________________
Pic: At and Nu surprised me with a M.U.M. (MakeUp Mother's Day) today. Their card was an "In Sympathy" card for being their mom. They think they're so ironic and funny. [eyeroll] After they finished laughing at their joke, we had a wonderful time raiding my closet for wedding attire to wear this weekend and picking out jewelry--with my kids clowning all the while. Then a leisurely lunch of sesame noodles (I'd already made that for dinner, I didn't know we were celebrating today) while watching Laapataa Ladies, until it was time to head off to various meetings and appointments. It was too rainy to do our usual Mother's Day gardening, but I get three days of travel with these loves later this week, so I'm sure there'll be plenty of opportunities to maximize our time. 

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

the world after

I can start again tomorrow
despite how much I don't 
like becoming divided
despite how much 
I... shouldn't be
find me there

there's no reason for sorrow 
in a  day  still  so young 
when old  letters catch 
me time traveling... I
wonder who holds 
your empty hand 
_____________________
Pic: Max and Huck fresh from the groomer, watching me fetch myself a cup of tea to drink in the tea garden, which is very jungly at this point. ALSO!! I didn't mean to imply the fam neglected my plants while I was gone. The zillion plants and watering them are my thing. I've never asked Big A or the kids to do it because it takes at least two hours (a week) and that's a lot. If I make the pots a bit swampy before I leave, they can usually wait two weeks. As you can see, the begonias, geraniums, and jasmines (heroes all!) are blooming.

Friday, May 02, 2025

traveling (like) light


here, on our way
our connections belonging
only to ourselves 
history's hooks dangling
 carrying instructions
treading eternally in travel
flighty and watery 

brave before memory
yet imagining every thing...
foreign for moments
knowing our effects are light 
yet baggage enough 
for other people to live out 
of them for a lifetime

___________________________ 
Pic 1: Like I did last time, I got everyone identical scarves to loop onto our backpacks so we can ID each other easily. (My pic.)
Pic 2: I'm so grateful for this community of eager learners. They were willing to construct and present on their keywords and concepts in the airport on our long layover. (Pic by our travel chaperone.)

Thursday, May 01, 2025

I'm there

let's not keep fighting           
                              the same wars         
their adjectives          
                           and geographies   
are only those of mortality          
                          speak surrender          
                          sweet surrender          
I don't think we get to escape          
                       anymore than clouds
                       can keep their shape          

the victory is that we were          
                  and sometimes 
we were together
______________________________

Pic: Sunrise with Max. As I get ready to leave for the U.K. for two weeks while vaguely worrying about being allowed to return, I think this is one of the many moments I will miss while I'm away. Not unrelatedly, I am so happy that Mohsen Mahdawi has been released. I listened to this interview he gave the day before, while he was still detained, and loved it so much I shared it on family chat. It's worth the ten-minute listen.

Monday, April 28, 2025

no doubt, no learning

no doubt, no learning, the guru says
these days flicker across your face
the sun dismantles every silence
and hangs up a chorus of desires 
made of bruises and credulousness 
a necklace of words around your throat
*
you don't even know that you're happy 
crying for something you can't recall
discovering circles of people
the drowned sounds of places
the burning earth, the world we made 
where everything can be turned into song 
________
Pic: The Red Cedar on my way back from breakfast yesterday. I love how this is from the bridge right in the center of the city and reportedly the most dangerous traffic intersection. But if I look away to my right, all is calm. 

Friday, April 18, 2025

he stands there

he stands there as if
 the most popular boy in pre-K 
the other kids clustered around
exclaiming at his new clothes
           that's my old T-shirt said one
           my old rain boots said another
           those pants will make you itch
          ask me how I know, said the wag 
he stands there dull
the shape of shame in his mouth
pushing up the smile that wants 
to droop, thinking up a comeback  
           in years to come he'll be bemused
           that his kids aim to shop vintage
           and give clothes away seasonally
           that his wife wants to thrift... and
he stands there, still
when she invites him to come 
lifted like a ship in a calm harbor
surprised he finds welcome in this
_________________
Pic: A magnolia tree in full bloom. (On a walk with L.)

Sunday, April 13, 2025

a checklist for the seasons: speech & passage, change & endurance


 the diagnosis is that its only nostalgia
the prescription is just talk
so I try twice a day to mimic my elders
misinterpreting decades

to all these openly yawning windows  
and wait patiently
as words fall into them... no one gets hurt
while beating time

although I thought of money as paperwork
all these years, I find
they're artificial leaves falling sullenly
no matter the season

so there's no need to hold me or name me 
I write to you against all odds
and wonder how we don't cry all the time
sometimes, I am so proud of us
-----------------------------
Pic: StephLove asked what the Muppets-themed seder was like. There was an enactment of the Passover story in one of the M's currently empty raised gardening beds with puppets. It featured Kermit as Moses, a Pirate as the Pharaoh and children had paper bags to throw locusts, lice, and pestilence when their cues came up. It was an inspired production and so much fun! And the weather was just perfect for all of it. 

Thursday, April 10, 2025

(Mis)interpretations

* Central Michigan University, about 20 minutes north of us, discovered during a random check that several of their international students had their visas revoked and thus their legal residency terminated without notifications to the university or the students. I don't think this is what "Land of the Free" means.

Ms. Rachel, the YouTube toddler entertainer, who has been compared to Mr. Rogers, shared UN reports of malnourished children in Gaza and started fundraising for Save the Children... and is being accused of being Hamas with calls for the Attorney General to investigate her for "anti-semitism." That term keeps being used incorrectly. Opposition to Israel is not anti-semitism, as Peter Beinart said recently

*Nu's class was scheduled to take a senior trip to the zoo today. All week long, in anticipation, we've been pretending that we understood "going to the zoo" to mean that Nu was going to be a zoo exhibit. Our jokes are really old over here. 

Pic: Nu's pic of the tiger at the zoo. Once upon a time, William Blake's "Tyger, Tyger burning bright" might have looped through my head. These days, I more likely to remember the six-year-old's poem so bright and clear it just cannot be misinterpreted: 

"The tiger

He destroyed his cage

Yes

YES

The tiger is out"

Tuesday, April 08, 2025

a day in the park

although most days dawn familiar
today from this bench I can hear 
children sing the songs they know 
about love and loss they don't know 

amidst laughter--these are the petty 
triumphs I want, the amiable teasing
practice for adulthood or adolescence 
while song comes in lashes of breath

in skeins of sound, spinning a cocoon 
around pain, placing it gently into trees 
that are beginning... to open their hands 
so I can put my heart at the quiet mercy 

of these top-20 tunes, feel the light lift
at the horizon of each child's laughter
imagining even their chatter as prayers
as promises of continuous tomorrows
________________________

Pic: From yesterday's walk east along The Red Cedar. The paths are flooded; I snuck around a few parking lots to bypass the submerged sections.

Sunday, April 06, 2025

when I let go

I seek rest while my words 
continue to work like 
beautiful outlaws
          for although I am meant to go
          I know no one has died 
          of being tired 
look--objectification in the mirror
is closer than it appears
and yet I find
          I've started to imagine myself
          as someone with holes
          in my hands 
___________________
Pic: L and I made a trip to our Daffodil Hill and it seems like the daffs are a bit early this year? (When I searched "daffodil hill, all of my other posts were from the last week of April.)

Tuesday, April 01, 2025

if you are my friend

let's keep going, let's get to the grandeur
let's come back, let's touch absences 
to one another
our next hours wait patiently as the present
life can be a cold war sometimes
its firings accidental 
our lives recognizable as burning pages
opening in flame before curling
sullenly into ash
let us finally acknowledge our condition 
know we are holding our breath-- 
to avoid inhaling smoke
____________
Pic: The Red Cedar in Spring (yay) thaw. Sprigs of forsythia (yay, Spring) in the corner of the frame.

Friday, March 28, 2025

don't let the one with the coconuts tell the story

Three traders set out, board the boat,
eager and dreaming of success
each with a sack of their wares
upright in the restless breeze
by their feet

it is a completely ordinary journey
their chat common, dealing 
in bargains and markets... 
until the storm bursts
until the boat floods 

Uppulu
Aiiyo! I've lost everything
weeps the trader whose sack was full of salt...
as all the salt slips away in rivulets 
of milky wetness beneath their feet
and the sack empties into nothing

Poppulu
Aiiyo! I've lost everything
weeps the trader whose sack was full of lentils...
though really, some lentils are soaked through
puffy as flowers ready for the pot this evening
but the rest may survive to sell after an airing

Koppulu 
Aiiyo! I've lost everything
weeps the trader whose sack was full of coconuts...
though the coconuts look fresh as children just bathed 
What? Say the others. No, you haven't lost anything!
Your coconuts look like they got a free wash. Shut up.
____________________
Note: From a story my ayah told me in Telugu to illustrate how the well-to-do love to complain about their misfortune even when it doesn't really compare or isn't really a misfortune. (I wonder now if there was something that prompted it--like if she'd had some argument with my parents who would have seemed well-to-do to her.) I came up with the retort to the coconut trader and the subheadings (salt, lentils, coconuts in Telugu) because they so neatly nearly rhyme. And I gender neutralized the characters without losing the plot.
______________________
Pic: The beautiful spring view from RS's window at book club today. There was more resistance talk and organizing than book discussion, which was ok with me. Especially since I'd read You Think It, I'll Say It literally years ago and forgotten many of its finer details.

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

like an open window

today I go on into
this leftover world 
with its great gifts 
of unfastened earth
and lightened tasks 
                                walking altogether
                                talking to myself 
                                and my gods--as if
                                anyone else would
                                even be listening--
waiting for beauty
opening like a fire 
connection a flash
the moments of 
understanding like
                                the peace that passes 
                                in the long silent times
                                of waiting as my heart
                                circles red the sounds 
                                of recovery and rises 
________________________________
Pic: This love. I get to handle this level of mopey, smitten affection for hours every day. Mostly from Max. Huck (further down) is a bit more sophisticated about it. 

Friday, March 21, 2025

that it's only a doorway, that I'm only a door

So I go bravely before memory
pet my parents so gently
and secretly check 
that they breathe

the day begins or it does not
I can no longer joyride
on his shoulders or
straddle her hip

I fly them in on my thoughts
my rictus of yearning 
like a formal exit 
finding a soul

to write them everywhere 
like graffiti, follow
them everywhere 
like a ghost

______________
Note: There was a period in childhood where I was terrified my parents would die in their sleep. (They were perfectly healthy; everyone's parents in books were always dying though.) I would usually check their breath from the doorway of their bedroom. But my mom says she's woken up to me standing by her bed. (I might have died if I woke up to find someone staring down at me.)
____________________
Pic: Nu and I loved this puzzle we found at the bookstore, and we loved that someone had already put all the pieces together!
Oh, and Happy World Poetry Day!

Sunday, March 16, 2025

a very short journey to Varanasi

when  the priest  says it's time to wed
the groom declares he must leave now
he will go on a pilgrimage to Varanasi 
where  he yearns to become a scholar 

the  bride's brother  hurries after  him
with an umbrella, a brass pot of water
come back, he pleads, marry my sister
he waves the umbrella over the groom

who  is already dressed for a wedding
he  carefully washes  the  groom's feet 
with turmeric water from the brass pot 
in which marigold and rose petals float 

to soften his pleas, his clear entreaties...
the groom eagerly agrees, then presents 
his brother-in-law-to-be with a gold ring 
the wedding carries on as it was meant to
_____________________________________

Note: In South Indian Hindu wedding ceremonies there is a part called the Kasi Yatra (Pilgrimage to Kasi-Varanasi) which is such a little piece of theater. The groom declares that he's decided to continue being a bachelor student-scholar and takes a little ceremonial walk pretending to take off to the scholarly city Varanasi while the bride's brother is despatched to beg him to return to the wedding. They say it is to mark the passage of the groom from the state of bachelorhood to that of a householder. But it seems like a lot of drama. Haha. The groom is expected to give his brother-in-law-to-be a precious ring to reward him. My uncle still wears the ring my father gave him.

Thursday, March 06, 2025

in this version of myself

words break open into smiles
as they escape my mouth 
even as the sun breaks 
through clouds

every day it seems I put aside 
the language of survival
and will myself to find
life's uncut joy 

though my hands seem empty
I know in this version they 
cast to light and return
ready for the fight 
__________________
Pic: The sky as I headed home this evening: it's light out, the skies are blue, there are puffy white clouds. I didn't need a rainbow for my heart to leap up. 

Wednesday, March 05, 2025

waiting to be discovered

I come back, back to myself
my ears lost in my hair
skin in hide and seek

while waiting for the rain
while making some tea
I am owed

after I leave I wait to arrive
an endless innovation 
of grief, of joy 

loneliness is only an ongoing
connection with time
strange at its best

I learn how to speak to myself 
in courageous tenderness
and enact rest
________________________
Pic: The kandi bracelet Nu made me and Tiggy-Winkle (after Beatrix Potter) the fidget hedgehog KPB crocheted for me. Aren't they amazing? They look like they could be friends and live together!

Monday, March 03, 2025

Pre-birthday!

Mondays aren't teaching days, so I had a soft reentry to the second half of the term. I got class preps in early, and worked on some reviews for a while. Then the heating tech came by to fix our broken heater. I forgot to mention we didn't have heat over the weekend--thankfully, the hot water was still working and I got by with sweaters and puppies.

Big A and I took off for a hike in Sleepy Hollow State Park, I've wanted to go back with him ever since I went with work friends last month. He downloaded the six-mile loop trail, but I wanted to go around the island too, as it's really picturesque, and then we got lost for a bit--so it ended up being more like eight miles. 

At one point, Big A pointed at a plastic tube and looked at me very meaningfully, and I didn't know what he meant--like was he mad that someone had dropped their chapstick? Turned out it was a shotgun casing. I'd never seen one in my life before. We found a bunch more further down the trail, but didn't meet any hunters.

Birthday cards and a garden catalog (Spring is coming!) were in the mail and we got Subway for dinner as a treat. Online birthday greetings are beginning to trickle in (my school friend's big sis in New Zealand is always the first one to wish me), I've had birthday calls with my sister and my uncle, my birthday fundraiser is over halfway there (I set a bigger goal than usual, fingers crossed), I'm on my way! Yay! 

Pic:Lake Ovid behind me. Sleepy Hollow State Park.

Ughs <--> Ohs

The NWSA proposal EM and I submitted together didn't get accepted, but the one I submitted by myself did. I wanted to go with her ! I ra...