temple scene

The kids went to the Hindu temple with me over the weekend. As I was getting the offering tray of flowers and fruit ready in the kitchen, I yelled up at Nu to wear something respectable to the temple... please don't put on yet another emo tee with skeletons on it... 

And then I yelled up again: never mind.... 

I mean, Kali statues at the temple are practically wearing skulls as a necklace; my 14-year-old can wear what they want.

this thing on my finger

      The spinning diva offers: "if you like it then you should have put a ring on it..."

or else what, I remember thinking--we should date someone else

     or once there's a ring on it we'll belong to them?

I mean, I really didn't get it. After all, I didn't even get a proposal from you

I don't recall ever talking about marriage we just seemed 

to think we'd be together: Typical Pisces-Scorpio 

with trouble distinguishing where our bodies and destinies separated.

But we did say we didn't want diamonds mined from sorrow 

so in other historical ruin, we turned to my grandmother's

wedding necklace that had been broken down into tiny necklaces 

for her four daughters and then into earrings for many granddaughters

--the honor of this landscape retreats, struggles, is small

I haven't even worn that ring in years... it gets in my way.

Here--now: we're making dinner, my fingers slicing things and then 

slipping, and the blood and the nick on my hand lose a battle

pain knots into a big bow of something sure to heal by tomorrow

it calls for the return of care, reduces your grand calling as a doctor:

to a childish charge... the blunt and careful binding of bandaids. 

Then you're gone for two days but I wear this "disgusting" (our 14-year-old) 

bandaid you wrapped around my finger, extending this trivial thing, wondering 

about separation and affection had you only... put a ring on it.

_____________________

I mean, I did say I was going to write teenage poetry when Big A is away at work (second para). Clearly, it wasn't an empty threat.

Twos-day!

For some reason, I've been so excited for today. I like palindromes and liked learning "ambigram" and was plain delighted that today existed.

I guess all the coincidences of the day had something to do with today's mid-soak epiphany that the Tamil endearments "thane-y" and "maane-y" translate handily to "honey" and... "deer" (not "dear"). 

____________________________________________________________________

A Sonnet on Coming Halfway Across the World

For we are everywhere a palimpsest of us

and the karma and the kismet of meeting 

is multiplied by the distance of continents

fussy with farness, a dance of catastrophe. 

What if we should fail at loving each other;

what if language cleaves us with difference?

 It was in childhood I first heard of love--

on the radio, songs speaking endearments

in Tamizh, singing O thaneY, O maaneY...

these cupped invitations that connect us:

thaneY is... honey; maaneY is... deer, but

still homonym enough to arc from error

to hope--like words I carry as souvenirs--

we two/too are alike, steadfast, and dear. 

(before my parents' arranged marriage)

When my mom was trying hard to be my best friend

(so I too would share, so I wouldn't decide to die)
she once told me how in the late sixties
she'd take the 21 bus from her college
to go "flirt" at the university library

Heading home meant rules and four younger siblings 

(and college was only to make her marriage worthy)
so she'd stay back to read trashy novels 
knowing dudes were watching her 
from neighboring desks

I feel a flicker for mom in her carefully pressed saris

(pressed under her mattress if she missed the dhobi)  
knowing she'd never be allowed to work
using the few years she had

for freedom, for fun

she told me she never looked directly at any of them
(I mean, that would be to risk a bad reputation) 

but there was one bespectacled dude
who seemed a very serious type

she didn't know his name

graduation results went up, and he asked how she did 
(she was too taken by surprise to counterfeit, so)

she told him she got a third class--i.e. a "C"
he turned on his heel--and she laughs-- 
she never saw him again

to feeling better

I wrote: "Time is terrifying" 

later remembering: *kaal--time 

--is one of many names for death

and also just as ordinary as life is

Pointless: the closings, returnings,

emptying into tunnels to spotlight

our origins and pain... this sad sad

diorama of what we never asked for

I am asking for Scout to feel better--

I mean, look--suffering is overrated

really--like anything could make this 

best-est of all friends a better being

________

Pic: I got Scout a new bed so he'd be comfortable when I wasn't around to give him an "uppy" to the couch, but Huck (who can jump up onto every piece of furniture in the house) claimed it first. 

*In Hindi and Sanskrit kaal means time/epoch but can also be another name for the God of Death. I may have been thinking of that subconsciously in the last line of yesterday's entry.

practicing panic

for my head is full of sound

loose in its orbit

like a character in a cartoon

I refuse to choose

perhaps the moon will rise 

out of my chest

into skies of hope-rage-love

bigger than loss

yet for now I'm just watching 

alert from afar

feeling like a new  w o u n d

waiting to scar

________________________________

Pic: So the storm came and the snow stayed. I took this picture from bed this morning, cozy in the knowledge that Nu's school had already declared today a snow day.

the body we lived in

loss hovers here--already a ghost/

formless the way these ghosts are

one hand on my chest, squeezing/

another hand signing what shape

it may take, /how it may unmake 

--with a ghost laugh so loud, /I cry 

"remember!" I want to say; /I ask--

"remember?" there's a way home

crawling amphibian up my spine 

but I'm still waiting/ to be found

my arms outstretched--embracing

/unarmed and ready for the rack

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Pic: A hawk (?) by the Red Cedar, spied on my walk with Big A today. 

There was the body of a dead squirrel in the hawk's talons. (Big A kept asking me not to look at the bird and not to go closer. We both agree I tend to be much braver/foolhardier than he is.)

I'm also thinking about bodies and how they can be--or seen as--just one thing or another (/) because of what our poor little Nu said at the pediatrician this morning, and because that child, Brendan Santo, was found recently.

assisted living

grass and sky haven't have heard yet 

and I let the unknown speak for me

tricky forests spring up like questions

I will keep seeking a story I read as a kid

with its sad embrace of a torn telegram 

whose yellow moths follow me forever 

even the temporary kingdom of my trust

where lie grave jokes of literature and life 

about what could have been... has been

O I say--we are such strange creatures

I hear about chimp haven; feel a relief 

for beloved elders finding assisted living

Friends, the only breath in cages is death 

maybe we use shards and shadows to knit 

soft shelters to lay over this thing called life?

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Related/Random BOC

* I read a story when I was 9/10--I think of it as my first grownup story--about a man who tears up a telegram bearing bad news about his wife and baby in order to pretend to his fellow train passengers that all is well. The story sat between Hawthorne ("Young Goodman Brown") and Thurber ("The Catbird Seat") in an anthology of great American short stories (likely someone's discarded textbook), but I don't know the title or author despite a great number of patchy google searches.

* I couldn't get through to mom or sis on the phone today and was panicked enough to ask my cousin to check on them... turns out his wife, daughter, and mom are also down with the virus.

* The pulmonologist thinks my mom will be ok and back to normal in a couple of weeks.

* The story about the NIH chimps going to Chimp Haven was from my commute to work this morning.

* And there was a planning meeting for the conference in Minneapolis--so I was hearing Prince too, I guess.

in passing through

our midday is swollen

heavy with snow, sun,

the pitch of children

held borderless in joy

the zip-lining lunacy 

of answered smiles

anthems of exchange

pleating through time 

if someday we unstitch

don't hoard the vanished

remember, yes--remember

our own lavish heap of life

ECG Sonnet

did you drown in my eyes
and sink into my heart
quicken my blood
dissolve our lives

into one line

staticky 

vagal

benign

and beautiful

in the way of love 

of those too far gone

one fire quenched only 

with another--far fiercer

to bury ourselves, be born

in agreement

we're the ones using footprints
as poetry... or prophecy

our words as rungs

vowing to climb all the years

counting births and burials

between then and now

fact: it's hard we don't know

if we'll hear hands answer

and clap us back 

nervous, our fingers crossed 

as we reread the fine print

of the universe 

*************

Pic: KB came down to Lansing and I was SO happy to share my favorite woods with a favorite person. 

an international call

 

If you called my extreme condition: you might 

diagnose sister love--but do you know  

about the side effects

when my phone tells me it's her calling

--nausea, dry mouth, anxiety, 

shortness of breath

she knows this and inserts a subject line 

even as I--"hello?" "All's well, Akka,

I just called..."

 international calls are ordinary yet hide

like a virus inside information 

 finding a way to threaten

despite the softness of my sister's voice--

noisy futures sometimes dance 

alongside the old world 

international calls will make me watch--

make me guess who'll partner next 

parents, cousins, other loves

"I just called..." she says "one million cases..."

she says "I wanted to tell you all

 to be safe and careful."

Of course there's no way to be careful enough

(home is: a high school student,

a fast food worker, an ER doc)

I'm in the literal woods now (the metaphorical 

end of the sea), until the sun unhooks itself 

from a cloud shaped like a headache

and sails into the sky without even a cough

just this high, bright, and bored god

bearing messages--but not for me

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

Pic: Sunrise at Baker Woods. The phone rang as I was taking this picture, and I panicked when I saw it was my sister as it was kind of an unusual time for her to call me. She was calling because we--the U.S.--topped over a million NEW Covid infections yesterday. She wanted to ask the family to be safe and careful. But how? 

dinner conversation

the earth tilts into evening

I can hold you forever--

in arms, in eyes 

in a solemn ministry of love

my mouth is a vow 

(all words are wow)

I know love like loneliness

like a rescue animal

diving through fog 

in your marrows of strength

the tenderness of words

the tenderness of wounds

for when you ask me questions

certainty lies--folded between

my hands like grace

_______________

Pic: Family dinner yesterday; a serious conversation about cartoons. 

respairing

Honestly? I think I'm wary about 2022; I was way more sanguine about respair last year. 

Nu had some friends over to celebrate NYE at home; At went out with friends; Big A and I noshed while the puppies went between pets in the rumpus room (Nu and friends) to naps with Mama and Dada. Also: We pro-conned and discussed a job offer which would take take Big A to another state. 

We were supposed to do a whole family dinner tonight, but At's car ran into a curb and there's a weather advisory, so it'll be tomorrow (hopefully). I'm grateful everyone is okay-ish even while I will myself not to be superstitious about new year's day.

I'll carry myself into this next year 
conveniently mad
you know I've done what I could 

Happy New Year! Happy wishes!

2022, please

don't open and return these to me

we can be civil--here, take my hand 

shake it, I mean

don't like... coddle or confiscate it

__________________________

Poems from January 1 over the years: 

new year  

once more 

often 

nodes 

Jan 1st 

I took my kids to yoga today 

______________________________

Pic: The soapstone sculpture LB and TB gave us for Christmas. It looks like a very loving couple, and I think that was their point. (It also makes me blush a little with its intense intimacy.)

the writing on the trees

night always comes to inherit earth
light follows faraway--hopefully

from emerald to ash the borer hies 

pressing leaf into shadow

tearing through wood with a reason

writing hieroglyphs in hunger

seeming a cousin to cave scribbles

as madness is all to madness 

would you go on a walk with me

through seasons of damage

we can bless the falling of pillars

whittled from feral feasts

recorded on stoic skin and bones

etched into fasting flesh

for every time we've been reduced 

by some primitive scrawl of loss 

___________________________

Pic: I had to step across this tree trunk, which lay in my path in Baker Woods. And it looked like there were some primitive cave-painting-type etchings on it. A Google image search taught me that this is what damage from an emerald ash borer looks like.

abecedarian for 2021

                           OR

Anyway, innocence is a thing I overcome

By becoming a small offering of silence, 

Certain so many things never end at all.  

Destiny--these paths forking to multiply

Erupts into our endings and beginnings

Frames all the lessons I just won't heed

Unfolding in tedious, untidy symmetry

morning lesson

For L W-B 

the city is seated here... erratic 

along our teacher chatter

waving in delight

we find ourselves amidst magic

winterberries so ripe they 

must surely hurt--inside

alert and hidden and still as panic

one bird ruby as berries

another dun as boughs

play by themselves like... music

to complete the morning 

to see us whole

trance

it's like breezes open my mouth
to pour in salted happiness

but how well do I know myself?

sleep (do not) want to sleep

so tonight becomes a cartwheel 

of love on sliding sands

the glow of my amma, dad, uncle, 

aunt, and sister at a bonfire

the rap of waves half a world away

in harmony with my heartbeat

and here's me waiting for something 

wild    to wish me goodnight

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Pic: Picture of sunrise on the beach (Bay of Bengal) from a trip mom, dad, and Chelli took to visit VM and AA. 

in sight

the blizzard blooms 
in afternoon sun 

windows burn

but not the tree-line 

held in my mouth
like t e e t h  

unraveling the bridges
they can reach 

like breath

answering the songs

of late at night

dog choirs

we cannot yet speak of  

how meaning carries

across    species

I begin to see in silence 

how I understand

no thing

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Pic: Surprise snow overnight--on cue for Nu's first day of Christmas break. 

Notes: We're rethinking traveling between Christmas and New Year to see grandparents. And there are rumors that school may be online in the new year. (And yes, someone forgot to bring summer's pillows in again.)

friends,

be careful with your worship
for in love souls grow
missions shining

they'll just... catch your heart 
you'll watch them take it 

and you'll do nothing 

there are sighs in our history

the wet edges of my face

icy yet blazing

becoming... tender accounts 
starry with sentinels
and yes, shining