A BUTTERFLY TRAVELS

On the 24th of August, a few days after my birthday, my grandmother passed away. I haven't felt much like blogging or tweeting but Vera, my grandmother, loved my blog and used to sit with my ipad and 'catch up' on a year's worth of missed posts when she came to stay. She lived in Vancouver and spent her summers in England. Which meant we almost always spent our birthdays together, unless she was on the razzle in London, as opposed to her quieter, gentler, oh let's face it, more boring days in Cambridge. But she would have approved this birthday of mine...

There was a picnic by a pond, there were loved ones who brought food and drink and a very chocolatey cake... there was a beautiful spaniel - my grandmother loved dogs...

The twins visited briefly, incognito, but highly fashionable in their Aunty Shai's hot pink and neon green pashminas (there were marauding wasps hovering nearby)...

And my mother sent flowers despite being thousands of miles away at her own mother's bedside...

I was taken out for drinks and dinner by dear cousins and at night, under unseen stars and a cool rain, I slept in the gypsy caravan on the farm...

Vera had visited the farm a few years ago and would have thoroughly approved my temporary living arrangements. A kettle, albeit decorative, a cosy bed, and thundering rain all around...

In the morning, with a hot cup of tea, bread and cheese, I opened my beloved friend Mary's gift (I like saving birthday presents to leak into the next day) only to discover the same book I had taken the night before to read in the caravan! Mary often knows my mind before I do. Luckily mine was a library book, so I now have my own copy of Barbara Pym's 'Jane and Prudence'...

 

The day of my grandmother's passing I met two ladies on the farm, who through a very rapid exchange of conversation, asked if I would teach their Creative Writing class, their usual teacher having just left. I think my grandmother was trying to get me a job! Happy travels darling Vera. Know you will continue to be loved.

BLOOD OF TREES

Gustave Klimt

I lie,

fallen tree.

Yesterday, they

cut a hole in me

three needles thick

They read my paper skin

in Braille and rust

and bone

They sucked my limbs

of milk and marrow

and when I cried for home 

They sought my neck

pale birch, fat jugular,

and drove their cannula

in.

© Shaista Tayabali, 2013

A few days ago, May 10th, was World Lupus Day. This Friday, May 17th, is Put On Purple day for lupus (POP! if you like...) Cancer has pink, Lupus has purple...
I never remember these dates. I remember moments, small unforgettable invasions.
At a recent poetry workshop with a Cambridge poet-in-residence, we were given two words from which to create a draft of something to 'take away'. The words were Blood and Trees. I didn't have to rummage very deep to find the words above. I sat in a stairwell and within a quarter of an hour, I had my poem.
I rarely write poetry at a desk unless as a happy alternative to writing something else! Like my term paper, for example... which, however, I finished and handed in yesterday. In time for another hospital infusion today. Another cannula will greet me with the wry question, "Where, this time?"
But, when I return home, this cheerful blue butterfly doormat will await me, and also, if it hasn't blown away, this heart shaped leaf I found and placed beside it. Butterflies are the symbol of lupus, did you know? Well, didja?