NINETY YEARS OF LOVE

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms, And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail, Unwillingly to school...

I am sitting in the conservatory, Bella beside me on her iPad, the two of us knuckling down to a little late afternoon writing... a remembering of our summer thus far. Bella is mostly mewing beside me while I try to tempt her to various strands of 'where to start a piece' about her recent five days at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts. A pigeon is casually clip-clopping on the roof above our heads, a metronomic timer accompanying us as we touch type. Downstairs, three generations of Tayabali men are watching/ listening to the cricket... the tussle between India and England has been on usual historically tense display. Perveen is in her computer corner, working on her third novel, A Sparrow Sings. Her first two novels are still filling her readers from Bombay to Singapore to Canada with nostalgic joy.  

This afternoon, Raf broke a double yolked egg into his noodles. 'Go show Grandma,' I said, knowing double yolks are meaningful to Mum - she broke a double yolk on the morning of her wedding day. And on rare occasions since, always infusing the moment and the day with a touch of ceremonial blessing. Summer in England for the Singapore crew will come to an end in a week's time. The children will go back to school and I will approach another birthday with a mixture of gratitude and bafflement. How do the years coalesce into decades, how are we living the seven ages of man we merely studied, unromantically, at school? Language that was beyond normal comprehension then, and frankly, now.

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;  His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide/ For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes/ And whistles in his sound. 

This summer, my father turned ninety. Ninety years. Is that included in the seven ages? 

Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

No... Shakespeare does not convey a lifetime of love, admiration and the youthful spark that still lights my father's spirit,  humour and wisdom. Perhaps Shakespeare never met such a person as Dr. Chotu Tayabali? What is the worth and weight of a life? Can poetry contain the essence of the human experience? I have been attending poetry workshops since last autumn with the dancer-poet Trivarna Hariharan... each poem I wrote was filled with grief and mourning. So I stopped. In summer and in winter, I am a full time aunt, and find myself unable to concentrate on much other than planning days, moments, activities and meals to make time pass bearably, enjoyably, for children away from their usual landscape of security. 

We painted a fence in candy stripe colours of cream and pink. We drew fish and Pokemon. We watched Fantastic Four at a fancy cinema and in between, wove tales for Chotu of life continued, generations continued. My father always wanted children around him; I have inherited this thread of understanding too. Where there are birds, there is hope and song. So also where there are children, Happy birthday to the original Pied Piper, from the adoring, uncountable, leaves of his tree.

A THOUSAND FLUTES

There are trees everywhere, on my shelves. 

You could call them books, or leaves. 

Ada Limón says, ‘It begins with trees’

and although some might argue that 

‘it begins with water’, with the first separation 

into ‘the waters above and the waters below’

maybe we, in our separation, begin 

our ways of seeing with trees.

For example, we never remember 

that we are mostly water.

We always forget to drink 

in the casual days of abundance -

only when we are parched in the desert,

forced into famine, or praying at Ramadan, 

do we remember the sweet 

source of our beginnings.

We cut the willow down 

because she was rooting 

into the walls of our house, 

seeking the river.

I think of this most days. 

It was an us and her moment 

we never foresaw -

not my tree loving mother, nor me.

My mother adapts. She sees 

the holly that was hidden 

behind the willow

flourishing, freely, now.

I’m still in nostalgic mourning. 

The willow was a thousand flutes

singing all day long, like Radha 

dancing to Krishna.

Pigeons and doves made love in the 

shifting light of a green curtain.

Everything was music and dance

almost all year long.

It’s still now, empty.

My grandmother would have hated it;

Vera loved the willow 

as much, or more.

I liked hiding inside her.

She was not just tree, 

she was water too. 

But being water was her undoing.

She was planted outside a house, 

on a human road, between grass and car. 

Perhaps her death began 

at the moment of her birth? 

Did trees begin with us? 

No, they began with the sea. 

Oh, why do we end tree stories?

Do we?

My shelves are filled with leaves, 

and the willow lives inside me. 

The kissing and the killing

forever entwined within me.

© Shaista Tayabali, 2025

Photos by me, in Emmanuel College, Cambridge - post infusion

Art of Radha Krishna by @abhiart (Abhishek Singh)

Poem included on Dverse Poets Open Link night, a community who have been sharing poetry as long as I have had my blog... 

A LITTLE WISTERIA

In a quiet Cambridge front porch, the scent of a small vine satisfies.

I stepped outside yesterday and buried my nose in the lower hanging wisteria. I let the plump petals bless my forehead, cheeks and just for a moment, thought this, this is what we dream of when times are hard, when beauty is a luxury that almost makes us angry - because others can enjoy what is not ours. When hunger is at the forefront, and food is scarce for us, but others are eating plentifully, voraciously, and also therefore, carelessly, how can we write poetry that is not tinged with steel and scalpel? 

A blackbird is hunting around the daisy adorned grass in front of me. I am standing in the doorway, listening to a chorus of birdsong, knowing that the church bells will ring in less than an hour. It is Friday evening, May has begun and the wider world is roiling away with war, extraction and poverty. 

Tomorrow, when the nurse places a needle in some part of my arm, I will as always think of other humans in less salubrious medical conditions. I will give thanks simultaneously with my silent ‘ouch’ if the needle finds a dry spot, a scarred tissue, a little vein of sorrowful memory. 

“Shaista, there’s a book I think I’d like to re-read,’ says Dad. Saint Francis of Assisi. By Chesterton. Take a look?’ 

‘I’m on it,’ I say. 

And today, it arrives by the magic of mail. 

Scraps of happiness, windows of light, the pattern reveals itself oh so slowly. Mostly we are myopic beings, causing our worst damage when we see but darkly. 

Yitzchak has just been born to Sarah and Abraham in the Old Testament class I attend once a week. ‘He will laugh.’ And soon after, Sarah commands Hagar to flee with Ishmael, to become strangers in a wilderness. I find myself thinking of Zarathustra, the prophet who was born laughing. Lately, I’m trying to understand laughing till we cry and crying turning to laughter. And between them, and around them, the still moving waters of the deep. 

SUMUD صمود

April now… we are in the middle of Passover. Chag Sameach. For some, this is the second Seder without their family members, who were taken hostage during the autumn of 2023. I think about how part of the world is praying everyday for the removal of some people from Gaza for their safety, while others are praying for the continued resistance of Palestinians, to be able to stay in their land, on their land. This particular resistance is known as

صمود

To quote Rabbi Brant Bosen, ‘Those who participate in the Passover Seder are required not only to read the story of the Exodus, but to examine its relevance as the Haggadah instructs us, in every generation.’ Adam from Adama… human from humus… from the soil we arise with soul, and then we are returned to ash and dust, soul returning to… where? I see the atheist’s point of view. If this is all a game, a playful experiment, with God the creator and destroyer, equally, then why engage in a game rigged from the very beginning?

This year finds me drifting in a conscious, thoughtful way, between the Hebrew (new to me) and Arabic letters. Shin, Alif, Lam/Lamed and Meem/Mem…next time, some more letters from Dad’s name… known lovingly as Chotu, he is also of course Mujtaba Tayabali. Tayyib, meaning good… around the Middle East, it’s almost slang for ‘What’s good? All good? All well? Bien? Bené?’ Or more politely, ‘Keef halak, ya tayyib? How are you, O good one?’

Well, it’s not at all tayyib. It’s so far from tayyib. We are all holding on to the scraps of our minds. Scattered Minds is the title of one of Gabor Maté’s earliest books, on ADD - Attention Deficit Disorder - I feel very ADD with the amount of literature I feel I ought to be ‘on top of’, the podcast episodes I have not yet caught up on, even, for the sake of entertainment, the TV dramas and movies I have yet to watch, the music that is passing me by.

Chat GPT helpfully sorts out a version of my life: this is how your life could look, appear the magically typed out words. I pay attention to the orderly structure for a moment, and then I scatter. Meanwhile, in between reading the cricket commentary to Dad, feeding my parents dishes I cook from Hello Fresh recipes, and trying to remember to do at least two surya namaskars a day, I am painting by numbers. Each month, I manage one completed work. Here is April slowly unfolding, one tiny shape at a time…

HAFTSEEN

It’s Navroze today, the 21st of March. Spring equinox. That daffodil time of year. A good Iranian creates a beautiful haft-seen table, as described in this article perfectly. ‘Haft’ is seven in Persian, and the seven objects to be displayed all begin with the Persian letter ‘seen’ … S.

It’s not a big Parsi thing as far as I recall? And not a practise we have ever engaged in as a family, but it does look delightful when done… as would any feast table at iftar, Eid, Diwali, Passover and Christmas… beginnings, middles, ends of years. The seasons are scuttling by faster than ever, humans are humaning so fast that we have already ushered in the dawn of our intelligence companion - dear old Chat GPT, invisible amanuensis, ever ready with a thoughtful answer, memory ever updating. Feeding us and fed by us. An Additional Intelligence. 

I mentioned in a previous post that I had been attending poetry workshops once a week… in January, I began attending a God Fellowship course in tandem with studying the Hebrew Bible with Hadar Cohen, a mystic Arab Jewish scholar, who possesses that rare ability to invite deep spiritual and spirited thought by the quality of her listening. In Hadar’s case, the peace she creates is secondary to the justice and universal liberation she works for.    

Listening is an art we aren’t encouraged to practise. It’s the talkies we like to engage in. Chatters by nature, our opinions have become currency. The radio has been replaced by podcasts and Instagram can be dipped into all day long. I love podcasts. I think I’m subscribed to over one hundred and sixty! I have uncounted tabs open on my various devices, an enormous list of movies/ documentaries to be watched and partially read books glower at me, reproaching their once loyal, now absentee friend.

I like to think I will make a longed for return to reading. I like to think I will attend to my patiently waiting novel. My yoga mats stretch out, hopeful in purple and pink… but… early this morning, a song rang out loud and conspicuous - ‘Pretend you’re happy when you’re blue!’ - and I knew Dad had not slept, was desperate for a cup of tea and company. The sun caught him out the other day, as he soaked up rays in the doorway. He fainted and Mum had a tricky time trying to manage him back to bed, and then, when he still hadn't fully regained consciousness, down to the floor - I was at the hospital having an infusion. The paramedics arrived and were brilliant, but Mum had already wrenched her back by then. Dad’s ok, Mum’s ok … Nat King Cole sets the tone… and I, trying not to cry most of the time, keep quilting the patchwork of my days, a haft seen of its own.

(Images of the Haftseen above are by Pauline Eleazar for Savoir Flair)

(Hadar Cohen can be found at her own website and at Malchut, her Jewish Mystical School)

EVEN MALEFICENT

I hold my face in my two hands,
 and the rest of me falls apart.

So I hold my feet in my two hands,

 and now I am on the floor.

Oh not this again, 

me longing to fly.

Searching for wings, 

 I find torn flesh, 

this too, ripped,

 by two hands.

Nameless men, named men. 

 Even Maleficent 

took lifetimes of loneliness, 

to find her wings again. 

© Shaista Tayabali

at DVerse Poets

image from Allure magazine

ICARUS IN REVERSE

I want to be impressive 

and say I met a mountain once,

or a pyramid, or the desert -

but the truth is the sea scares me 

and the only landscape I know 

lies beneath me; 

my bed. My panicked heart. 

I iron over my panicked heart,

flat as sheets of hair

you can buy these days, and

attach, like a doll’s accessory 

to your own bemused scalp -

whose stories have crossed rivers 

you’ll never know.

Be sure there was sadness there,

you’ll never know.

No one parts with their hair 

when it ripples freely; freedom 

was paid in the sacrifice. Who

pockets the coins of gold

in the temples of our prayers?

The first women who wrote poetry 

were nuns, some say. But the 

first woman was earth, was sea,

was fire flooding air, is still

every tree. I want to be impressive?

Why? Every tiny seed is me.

The sorrow is I forget my wings 

and falling, fail to rescue me. 

(Images: via Lucy Campbell art on instagram After Bruegel, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels)

Participating in DVerse Poets Open Link night 

PALINODE TO FLIGHT

‘New Year met me somewhat sad,

Old year leaves me tired’ - Christina Rossetti

Bird on a wire.

Bird on a tree.

I see you.

Do you see me?

Blink and I’ll miss you.

Squint and you’ll see me.

I, in a taxi, unable to drive.

You, wingèd beastie, fly. 

Fly!

Down among the chimneys,

we burn and kill each other.

Friendly slaughterhouse,

we marry and charm each other.

Trees grow down here, their 

roots our only saving grace.

Mycelium drip feeds our lungs - 

we live, we breathe; sip by sip, 

we make space. 

© Shaista Tayabali, 2025

This, an attempt at a palinode (a song of opposite ideas, or retraction of opinions) is what I wrote in the taxi on the way to the hospital yesterday for an infusion I missed on Sunday. I slept through Sunday’s infusion appointment time, still so fatigued from the weight of last year. 

In this poem, I begin with height and flight, but also shorter staccato lines, and then it takes a turn, a descent, a swoop down into the mire and murk of being human. I try towards the end to invite the idea of space, which is what birds have in abundance, and what we seem to devour with our selves, our industry and our tech. Trees, as always, save us, both reaching down and reaching up. Trees have no need for palinodes. Except when they are on fire… 

(Images : Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882)

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