when she began about with her kith and kin
in childhood for long she looked in every dust-bin

when she grew up, they asked her, “Well?”
and, she said, “Well, yes, that could have bin.”

Potrait of a Dying Lady

The nurse’s sweet smile
Like the crescent
How everything fades away
To simple shapes known

He brought tulips
Instead of nodding, white lilies
I said candidly I didn’t like them
I measured them out
To the chapeau
Mother gave me
On my eighth birthday
I said to him
“They wouldn’t sit right on it.”
“But, you don’t wear that hat any more,”
He said. I didn’t reply.

There was green thicket in the summer
Now all is covered with snow
White as the numb, peaceful colour
My indifference took
To pain I cannot remember anymore
Till it became the white robe
I cover my body with at all times,
And lie on the bed
I am learning peacefulness, now

A ghostly wind comes in
From the window and sweeps
The hollow of my room
I think they are to-be friends
Come to say to me,
“You shall be as us.”

Presently, outside our house,
An old, haggard woman cries
In a light, sing-song manner:
Flores para los muertos…
Flores para los muertos…
She has a basket full of flowers
I open the door to her
She turns to me and smiles;
Says, “Flowers; flowers for the dead”

He wouldn’t understand
He never learnt French, you see

The nurse’s sweet smile
Is like the crescent
And everything is slowly fading away
To simple shapes known
Since when time first began for me


***

PS In part, this is the inspiration, and as is apparent, Sylvia Plath’s Tulips.

He would have
Much too much to say
He would lead me on
And teach me
The perfect ballet

I wouldn’t speak mine
You see, I ever had
His words to say
With his rolling tongue
He’d keep them in my mouth

His touch was
The touch of Midas
So I would gather form
And just as soon
Would die away

In private, I would write poetry
Do words have lives?
I would wonder
Bless them if they do!
I would say

The silly mountain
Awoke
With the thrust of the wind
That had brought word
From the sea
Of love

The mountain
Well
It scratched its head
And dropped some trees

And read the
Letter of love
And melted
Into the sea

Down below
It began to flow

The sea
Already had
Too many children
She said,
“Well”
And the mountain
Well
It dug a deep
Well
That reached
Deep in the bowels
Of the earth
And disappeared
To be never seen again
By the sea

Without the mountain by them
The seas lone wondered away
In the horizon
Where in dying memory
Of the mountain
The seas had vodka
With the Sun

On another shore
A girl who was very coy
Slapped a boy
When he said he
Wanted to play
With her toy

On another shore
A girl said ‘lol’
And the boy
Well
He gave his all

On another shore
The son
Of a gun
Had a lot of fun
With the poet’s pun

The Squirrel
Had gone
To calm the quarrel
Between the boy
And the girl
The girl
Whose beauty
Had
In the boy’s dream
Unfurled
When she had
In her bed
Uncurled

When she had looked
At the window sill
And had seen
A squirrel
That had climbed
Up the ant-hill!

The squirrel
Disappeared
As it had appeared
In a gleam
That had come from
A page
In half opened
Shakespeare’s
Mid-Summer Night’s dream

A rather old book
That lent
Its head
To the sill
By which shone
A moon

Game

Must I say a word
And you tell me
What it means
Must we babble
Or rather
Must we play scrabble

Must we, or play
Hide and seek?

For if you cannot place
The word I speak
Let us then play
Hide and seek
Where I shall seek
A secret place
Where I shall hide
And you shall try find me

Herculean Shoulder

When I wrote the first
And in another
When I laid
Myself out
In another line
I came to be

I carry
On the left
Herculean shoulder
Of my metaphor
The world
To the shore
Of another
Folk lore

Folks that fold
Themselves in old
Folk lores

Bear me
In their whisper

They say
Many a tale

Most of all
They usher
Me
To ask her
Out on a date

On Friday morning’s
First release

The Toil
In solitude
I toil
And the fragrance
Of my sweat
Awakens the spirit
That sleeps
In silence

In vain do I offer
Gitanjali:
Offerings of songs
And welcome Him
Evermore

He is not desirous
Of these
He wishes
I work
As ever in trance

And be faithful
That behind
The veil
Of silence
He resides
In eternal dance

***

The Lullaby

The eternal mother
Whose spirit guards
The corners of the earth
Sings us all
The lullaby
Of History
The great tales
Of great heroes
Their glories
Is sung
In lullabies
To children
Whose mothers
Stop by
The self-same magical river
In which
The mother
Of Achilles
A great seer
Had bathed her son
And had made him
Invincible

***

PS

“It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can’t) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.”

– James Mathew Barrie, The Adventures of Peter Pan