To Erma Bombeck

A mother - a writer once said to me “Do what will endure” and because she was of love and of good humor and because she was of joy and caring for un-met friends. I tried. Now I write and play with my child, who knows not of dirty dishes in the sink, unmade beds, bathtub ring, of dust collecting on oak and maple, of records clothed in other jackets, but gives me of herself her toothless smile and sometimes of her oatmeal.

White dress in the Dark

Inside my body she lives in the dark
which is sometimes a forest that she cannot traverse
sometimes the thickness of tar that she cannot escape
sometimes the dark is in her, sometimes she is the dark
that lives inside my body.

Her frail girl's body, long braids hanging down her back
dressed always in the shattered dress of her last moment
not knowing where she is nor escaping where she is not
wandering the landscape of my body and hiding from my mind
keeping the secrets that have kept me safe.

Inside my body she has lived in the dark for too long.

Is the Wildness to be Trusted?

He is unleashed
like a panther
from its cage.

Bounding all
around me
now playful
now frightful

This power
this love
will devour me.

Just One More Day

I always thought
you would push me
too hard, too far
and I would pick up
and go
leaving you missing me:
too late.
And now you tell me
you may have to go
sooner than you know.
Stay
and let me love you
one more day.

Loved Imperfections

This present perfection that we share
is all the more perfect for its flaws
for they are encompassed in our soft
silent world of loved imperfections.

To Juhi: The Difference You Make

The sunshine's brighter, the clouds are all gone
the air is lighter, the day without scorn
that flower looks happy, which once was forlorn
Nature is bursting quite clearly this morn
since I've seen you.

Since I've seen you my mind's crystal clear
this morning's dew has wiped out my fear
he's close to me, who I hold so dear
love comforts me, be it far or near
your face in my eyes.

Your face in my eyes daily reflects
your love seems to bind and then project
your heart and mind in retrospect
I hold you for life.

I hold you from life's coming disasters
protect you from time, now slower than faster
give you a world of smiles and laughter
leave you with joy on the morning after
the sun shines brighter.

The Colors of My Life

Three Poems on Surya Getting Married


Who would have thought
I would live to see
Priya in pink?
Priya in pink and blue
salwar kameez
bangles on her arms
toned from carrying
the sousaphone
And frequent trips
to the gym.
Priya sharing smiles
and being fabulous.

Anand in red and gold
devilish in his muttonchops
boy/man in charge of logistics
all seeing eyes behind
studious dark frames
rolling at the failings
of lesser mortals.
Resplendent in red
my golden boy
my new Bal Gopal.

Surya standing serene
in gold and green
embracing each one
who comes to wish her well
Wishing them more in return
graciously modeling
love acceptance joy
her laughter like
strains of a waterfall
golden out and in.

The 1980 Series

One

"Unfair, unjust,"
my mind cried out to me,
"he does unto you a wrong.”
"Quiet," said my heart,
"love is to love
through wrongdoing
unfair or unjust."

Two

Don't go they said,
he is cruel.
He will hurt you again.
Or you may be happy,
and being happy
forget to write in rhyme.
I am here
not totally unhappy
and the Muse not a stranger to my door.

Three

There is so much to love in you
which you don't even know, my love.
And so much that you think draws me
to you which does not.
But I am practical:
I answer no rhetorical questions
I live no rhetorical dreams.
If the choice is between
dull endless misery without you
and sometime-agony with you,
I'll take agony every time.

The Young Unknowing

Perhaps I feel too much.
Perhaps I would love thus
any man I loved,
giving him my all.
Perhaps you are the target
of my passion and zeal.
"I am a victim of your love"
he sighed, and turned to sleep.

Laughing with Rasputin

You hum and sing and laugh.
It makes my heart dance
to see you wiggle your ears,
fluff up your staid beard
into this rambling Rasputin.
Turns my smile into
a tickle in my throat.
Eons since we laughed together
or threw back our heads,
roaring at some old remembered joke.

Pieces of Me

There was too much of me
swirling around you
engulfing you
suffocating you
to feel like pleasure.
I step back now and see
how to offer myself
in measured moments.

Valentine's Day

Don't look for what
I ask of you
to show me love;
flowers, flowered
words of praise,
love expressed
hard or tender.
Find a way that
says for you
all you want
to show me love.

Tithonus

Emptiness surrounds me
to vie with the emptiness within me.
This hollowed gape was once
my hallowed cape, valley, and mountain.

All nature was me and I nature.
Trees, grass, sky, rain did in me dwell.
Now all in nature, as I am,
is sleet and ice, and falls and swells
with every rising falling pulse of mine
and slows….or does it stop?

No, that for me can never be.
For I live on and on to see
man fight man; country, country.
This wish on me no wish can be.
The curse within, the curse without.

Making Friends with Night

I shut out the night
night I had never seen.
I mourned the day end
the sunlight that had been
my only time with you.
Then I met night, and knew
that I would never be
afraid of love,
the dark was mine,
a lover like you.

MTP

It comes now, slowly
the first suggestion
of hurrying doom
and rushed prescriptions.

The Flight Series

One


Brown and tan and dark
earthtones
yet so unearthlike.
No green of grass
no blue of quenching thirst
Brown and tan for miles
earthtones stretching before me.



Two

Dallas at 35 thousand feet
cloudy and dark
silver and gray
bathed in fog
and swirling mist.
I fall into
its shrouding arms
fearing myself
fearing the fall
torrents of tears
torrents of pain.
And the first drop of manna
to my parched lips.



Three

Rivulets in stone
running through gashes
on the sides of
improbable majesty
running red from the blood
of what wound of mankind?



Four

In slanting waves
what once was
a trickle
has turned into
this storm.
Covering all our
windows, all our
views, all our sight.
But in ferocity
it loses to the
storming in my heart.



Five

The window was small.
Still, bigger than
the window to my heart.
And the droplets
of tears that clung to it
flicked from my tainted fingers
were darker than Desdemona's blood

Immigrant USA

All the years of wanting and waiting,
all the ages of hurting and paining,
all the hungering, thirsting desire
took only this letter to put out the fire.

"My darling," you've said, "I hope you're relieved
to know that the local laws are agreed;
I cannot return till my five years are over,
to roll you in hay, and hug you in clover."

"You're free to marry, whomsoever you please,
to settle down, have children, sow a few seeds,
And P.S.,I almost forgot to describe
the lovely young lady I've taken for bride.”

Where I Stand

You don’t push me away
you will not drew me near
you hold me at arm’s length
through pain, or shame, or fear?

Who are You?

You are you.
Or are you
a personification
of the flaw in you
that stands out
like your total self?

If the flaw is not You
only a part of you
or of your scheme of things
can I - with clear conscience -
rid myself of you
instead of excising the flaw?

Can I even differentiate
between what you do
and who you are?
Then, when I am feeling secure
in being again with you
will the tumor return
indistinguishable from you?

Sunday Morning Series: Summer 2008

One

Without my glasses
I can almost bear to look at you
your dark ringed eyes
filled with some failing hope
your jaw, tightened against the tide
of harshness you want to spew
the skin on your neck falling
like unfolding crepe origami.
Sitting with your folded arms
a picture of benevolence,
belying rising panic
at your world falling apart.
All of it indistinguishable to me
without my glasses.


Two

I move about the kitchen
briskly, smoothly
pans and whisks
flying in my hands
efficient harmony
peeling, chopping
bringing the ingredients
to their knees
in pleasured gratitude.
It is the world I occupy
that occupies and sustains me.
Will anyone in the World
know me when I leave mine
behind?


Three

I bounce around
on hobbled knee
stripping all that
I have known to
be myself
my nose and eyes
running their new
knowledge
into my sleeve
the sofa arm
the towels that cannot
hold it.
And he sits
gazing into the distance
oblivious.


Four

With babies
and toys
and dishes
strewn about
my lonely
landscape
the best help
he could offer
was to stay
out of my way
until dinner
was served, to which
being sufficiently
tender, I could
call him.

And now
awakening,
swimming
through the
mercury
of my discoveries
howling, weeping
I scramble
to find my
true self;
I find myself
scrambling
eggs for breakfast
while he waits
patiently
to be called
to the meal.


Five

I admire, he says,
his heart on his sleeve,
how you write.
How infused must be
that admiration
with the anger
of knowing
that he has inspired
such bile;
an unremitting
cascade
of his denigrations,
even if they are only
from my perspective.


Six/Sex

The day he was served
with divorce papers
in the driveway
he came to our room
and looking perplexed
said, "Does this mean
we can't have sex tonight?"
Things changed
but all things considered
things haven't changed much.


Seven

I take sole custody
of my actions
of my choices
even the one
to be choiceless.
But I cannot
help wonder
if we might
have survived
if you had
stepped off
the bleachers
strode onto the field
gotten into the game
with me
instead of
intermittently
clapping from
the sidelines.


Eight

Other women
other writers
have not had
this easy life
that I endure.
Struggling to
live by their
wits, their work
the klink of coins
in their hands
what they have
earned themselves.
Children thy have
raised
perhaps raising
themselves;
neglected, alone.
Or not having
enough
to eat, to read.
My children, and here
my chest puffs out
with hollow pride,
have lacked nothing
in the pursuit
of their noble causes.
This drowning mother
to whom they reach out
with their strong arms,
rescuing her
from the sulfur.


Nine

When all is said and done
why am I here in the kitchen
struggling to find my true self
amidst dirty dishes
while you go off to meditate
to find your higher self?


Ten

I used to wonder
if watching me imprisoned
by the Patriarchy
(A word I had not learnt)
made my beautiful girl
want only to be with women:
that is what the
Very Smart Psychiatrist said.
Or later, chameleon like
my other beautiful girl
became a miniature you
in defiance of all laws
of nature and probability
to have the entitlements of Men.
But no, they and their sister
come into their own skins
in fearlessness.
I wonder where they get it from.


Eleven

After months of barren
bowls and plates
we sit down to a shared meal.
The feast tastes like ashes
in my mouth
as the possibility raises
its head
that I have starved myself
all year
only to punish him
and watch him suffer.


Twelve

I have done this before
this looking for my lost self
but always with the goal
of getting his interest back
to where it belonged;
arranging myself seductively
on the bed or in the kitchen:
the two battlegrounds for winning a man.
Or so I had heard.
Now I want to know only myself
not the myself who only wanted
to be known only by him.


Thirteen

You are scared
by my wide eyed
wild haired
limping crying self.
I don't care.


Fourteen

To touch him
is to be a traitor to myself;
to comfort or soothe him
is treason punishable by death;
to allow him an iota of humanity
is to add another reason
to the ever lengthening list
of why I should not go.
Instead of just leaving.

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning.
Shouldn't we be
lazy in bed
or in the sun
running our hands
over each other
or on the hot buttered
bread I have baked?
Shouldn't we be
reading the paper
talking about
our brilliant children
cupping cardamom tea
in hands still sweaty from
the bed and the sun?
How dare I ruin it all
trying to find my lost self.

Pegasus

Here he lies:
the mentor of my dreams,
the listener to my weary woes
who knew me well from head to toes
who joined with cheer in all my schemes
and needed no good-byes.

No more will I ride him, safe and free
nor see him jump the fences high;
nor feel his hide, taut, under my palm.
I cannot cry, he taught me calm
and left me with a sigh
to find rest under his favorite tree.

No longer will I smell the sweetness of him,
no longer sense the thrill of touching
fleeting boughs;
nor stray to see the twilight on his back,
nor feed him extra oats in his gunny sack,
nor run him after unresisting cows,
nor let him follow all his heartly whims.

No more will the sunshine play hide and seek
on his shining coat of black
nor the sweat drops glisten bright
on his forehead star of white
nor his breath go in and back
though of him his stall will speak.

Will he have enough to eat, I wonder
where he's gone had better be warm
'cause he's left his Christmas blanket behind.
And I hope his stable boys are kind
enough to shield him from heavenly storms
‘cause I hear it's from up there
that raging storms to earth wander.

Life without him I can't fathom
though Mama says I'll get over
losses like these that death demands,
life of me my life commands.
And she says she'll get me Rover
but a dog would only be his phantom.

*****
His memory haunts me now and then
I've tried to teach my children, too
to love all creatures like their own
and not to fear the grave unknown
to cherish life and help the few
whose life depends on them.

Two from 1991 When Juhi fell Asleep

When heart are broken
and loving stains the bed
volumes are spoken
yet all is left unsaid.


Turn, turn, and bring me all the fruit
of patient waiting, of unbecoming truth
of lying awake in youths unending nights
of justice measured in wronging every right.

Crossroads

Two lives, two women,
three seekers of peace:
one gives attention
one serenity.
You pick one and lose
her adoration
the other may turn out
to be a shrew.

Had I Loved You

I have desired you more
and wanted you longer
than anything else in my short life,
but I have not loved you enough.
Not loved you enough to recognize
that you are not me;
your sun does not
rise and set on me;
your dreams and ambitions
do not include me.
I have been at the periphery
of your unshared desires
waiting for your love to arise:
a convenience, an annoyance
a rule maker, a ball breaker
inadequate as a wife and mother
but good for a roll in the hay
when your sun shines.
Life is too short, like me
and the time for remedy is at hand.
Perhaps I have not loved me enough.

The pain goes as deep....you said....

....and I said
The unconscious
where it keeps struggling
to keep the vows we make
as unknowing babies
until we awaken to the Giant
within ourselves
full of joy and bliss
and love for ourselves
so that it spills over
into enough to share
with others
like I feel for you
right now.

Brass

I have spent my life
being loud, strident, trite.
Trumpeting like a swan?
More like honking goose-like.
Of all the ears that could not hear
the deafest one was mine.

Shower

He likes to watch me, unseen,
in the shower
my head, heavy with grief
leaning against the cold tiles
my bulging belly
overhanging with untold secrets
my Botticelli flank
aching from a neglected spine
the clear water
running down my legs
diffused with the urine
of failed surgeries
he touches the curtain
(a passing breeze, really)
to inform me of your admiraton
as he watches me
in the shower
where I stand, unseen.

Coming Home

She is sprawled
half undressed
guileless
her arms hanging over
the sides of her chair
reading, so deep in thought
that putting on the other
half of her clothes
has slipped her mind
I bend over her for a kiss
she holds up a hand
index finger pointing
and I wait. Impatient.

Awakening

The awakening was slow
and late in the coming
so the light would not blind
my unbelieving eyes.

Dilemma

To leave
and make you realize
what you had.

To stay
and risk your eternal
not-knowing.

To love
and have you think it
my weakness.

The choice is absurd:
to hurt not having you
to suffer because I do.

Foundation

A house was started in the spring
no cement was poured:
they wonder how it crumbled
they did not see it fall.

One brought lumber
soaked in tears,
some brittle bark
to weave their fears;
one added planks
termite riddled,
one did not come
to build at all.

One carried nails
rusted with blood;
they hammered it
to stay aloft
through wind and rain,
in joy and pain
when they thought summer
came to call.

The walls were built
with careless hope
that all would be
withstandable.
They built for years
not looking down
to see if it would
stand too tall.

Now here they stand
among the heaps
of windblown dreams
at summer's end.
A house was built,
none came to see
the swaying stilts
none can recall:

No cement was poured.

Backroads

Flying down the black ribbon
of a winter road covered
in the ashes of mourning snow.
Rushing by leafless, lifeless
gnarled fingers rising
from twisted trunks asking for just this
one more day in the sun.

Almost There

Wait. Stop...stop
A moment frozen
stopped motion
hand holding still
"You want me to stop?"
Bitten lips tasting salt.
Just. Hold. On.
Nod yes, Wait...Stop...
Don't stop....Eyes shut... Let go...Leap!
Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop...

Words

They are just words.
Tell yourself often enough
you might make believe it.
Words strung together
into a necklace
no throat will ever wear.
Written, seen, read, spoken
have you not woken
from a dream
with another's words?
Weapon-like words
knives, arrows, bullets
rend the flimsy armor
of false beliefs
Could your words not span
bridges over chasms
of misunderstandings?
Like painful stitching together
of torn hearts and broken minds?
Like salve on open wounds
can they not undo?

Dancing with Surya

Tiny tendrils of my wonder
are snaking their way
through the cement of my endurance
in a wall, started by my tormentors,
but built, brick by back breaking brick,
by my own unnourished soul;
what was to have been my fortress
became my prison, brick by brick.

Tiny tendrils, stretching and growing,
awakening after a long lost sleep
match the wonder of the walls
fallen brick by broken brick
creeping, crawling, twisting themselves
through the crevices of my daughter's sunlight
forcing the mortar of my prison
to crumble, made gravel by her love.

For Vibha: At Gautam's Death

In the heaps of fallen leaves
among the hoards of fallen faces
I stand, an oak, sheltering all:
all around me, the sky is falling
in jagged blue pieces
the sky is falling.

The Flight Series

One


Brown and tan and dark
earthtones
yet so unearthlike.
No green of grass
no blue of quenching thirst
Brown and tan for miles
earthtones stretching before me.



Two

Dallas at 35 thousand feet
cloudy and dark
silver and gray
bathed in fog
and swirling mist.
I fall into
its shrouding arms
fearing myself
fearing the fall
torrents of tears
torrents of pain.
And the first drop of manna
to my parched lips.



Three

Rivulets in stone
running through gashes
on the sides of
improbable majesty
running red from the blood
of what wound of mankind?



Four

In slanting waves
what once was
a trickle
has turned into
this storm.
Covering all our
windows, all our
views, all our sight.
But in ferocity
it loses to the
storming in my heart.



Five

The window was small.
Still, bigger than
the window to my heart.
And the droplets
of tears that clung to it
flicked from my tainted fingers
were darker than Desdemona's blood

Shifting

My words cover the surfaces
I had wanted to keep clean;
my mind is so much clearer
than my furniture used to be.

To Juhi: This is You

The cold air, bracing, chilling to the bone
frozen fingertips;
the wind crashing against unprotected
windowpanes;
the night like velvet hung with mist
on rings of drew:
This is you.

The warmth of an open fire, glowing radiance;
the reflection of the dancing red-gold
embers
on the walls, on hands faces
shading shapes
shaping shades:
This is you.

Thermostat noses keeping vigil on
northern nights;
dark heads peeping from mountains of
quilts and blankets:
the snuggling close of children and hot tea
steaming faces:
This is you.

The laughing joy of winter, chattering birds
on morning grass;
the snow reflected sun on their small backs
drowsy warm;
the glint of sunlight off the mountain track
blinding eyes:
This is you.