HOW TO RECONCILE

I write my experience in sand this time,

wanting it forgotten.

Not like last time, every day recorded

in verse and flower, a memory scripture, 

a treasure.

 

Older now, none the wiser now.

Just swimming in the sea of me,

a current of one, in the ocean of all.

More scared now, knowing how far 

the fall.

 

In some ways, it is all the same.

Gold dust on white blossom, still plump. 

And yet, already, the slow drift

to green grass, to soft earth,

to winter down.

 

The nuns have so much to remember, 

like nurses, saving lives.

They need the bell even more than we do,

we, temporary retreatants – fleeing our worlds,

escaping to theirs.

 

Breathing in, I breathe with my father’s back.

Breathing out, I breathe with my father’s lungs.

 

I invited my father to join, 

but he declined, knowing I would 

bring him in anyway. 

It’s harder for some, no light or ease,

but the bells toll on.

Drepung Monastery, Xizang, Tibet

The birds are here, the birds are there.

My cup of tea grows cold, again.

Mother breathing in with me, 

mother breathing out with me.

I want both things at once.

 

To choose is to lose. Something. Sometimes.

Can anything stay a secret?

And still, we try so hard to hide.

Suddenly, the flood gates open.

Everyone cries.

 

The gold is gone now. Soon, 

Sister Tea Cake will sound the bell

for final goodbyes.

Everyone cries.

Sometimes. 

 

Present moment,

wonderful moment. 

Thây is still alive. Smile. 

Be still and heal. 

Reconcile.

© Shaista Tayabali, 2022

Thây, Tu Hieu Temple, Hue, Vietnam

poem linked to Dverse Poets OLN 

 

HANAMI TEA CEREMONY, KAETSU CENTRE

I never knew the Kaetsu Educational and Cultural Centre existed until just before Japan Day earlier this year. I never knew the Centre had been hosting celebrations for Japanese culture for decades. It’s nice when you discover depths to the community life that surrounds you...although nothing really should surprise one about Cambridge... it isn’t London, but it is evolving beyond its origins,beyond fenland and university land to a place where different migrating worlds collide.

Back to hanami in the heart of town. I arrived too late on Japan Day to enjoy any of the food - of course, Japanese food would be the first to be devoured! But I did sit down at the calligraphy table, and I did buy some beautiful handcrafted lavender scented worry dolls made by Kazuko, the chef herself!

I was so charmed by a young girl in her grandmother’s kimono, that I wrote to the administrator to say so, to thank them for the day. The person who wrote back turned out to be the charming girl’s mother! Which is always handy. When people praise me to my mother, I know she appreciates my daughter-ness. Filial success!

Hiroko replied, inviting me back for an informal hanami celebration. She is learning the ways of the tea ceremony herself, and I was guest of honour. The matcha was delicious, so lucky to have had two bowls (chavan), and the cake and sweets were all perfectly balanced.

I read a couple of my poems out loud to the five women present, and later, when it was just myself and Hiroko, we spoke of her own literary work - she is completing a paper on the ancient craft of kintsugi, the philosophy of which has long interested and intrigued me. Kintsukuroi in more recent Western philosophy is the idea that even something broken can be made beautiful, transformed by the gold lacquer that holds the pieces together. Why gold? Why such care taken over something broken? These are questions Hiroko is exploring and I can’t wait to read her paper. 

SHAISTA

‘Shaista.

That is a proud name,’ he said.

I am proud of my name.

It is the Rajput name for warriors.

It is the Persian name for poets. 

Am I not then Shaista, the warrior-poet?

I am standing on the battleground,

listing a little,

sword and pen at the ready,

blood and words aplenty.

But I long for sakura,

snow pink petals of my cherry tree.

Oh brief, beautiful one,

wrap yourself around me,

so I can be Shaista, the free.

© Shaista Tayabali, 2018

What does my name mean? My mother always told me it meant courteous and graceful, mostly because she wanted me to be unfailingly polite! But in Pashto, the language of the Afghans, my name means beautiful. An ex-soldier from Afghanistan once commented on my name as we both waited in line at the Apple genius bar! Then my poet friend Kenza assured me it was so... and last week a Pakistani taxi driver, who proceeded to quote couplets by Ghalib (in Pashto) at me.
When I was a child and our class was studying the period of the Mughal empire, and the wars between the Mughals and the Marathas in Indian history, we came across Shaista Khan, the fierce Mughal warrior. So of course my classmates wondered why I had been named after a man!
My own grandfather, though, had never heard of the name; he decided to call me Shy Star after I was born, so he could not fail to  remember the name of his first granddaughter. I use his mnemonic to help people even now, when they struggle to wrap their unfamiliar tongues around my name. 

The illustrations above of Sufi warriors, Sufi dancers, are my own... I've been including them in copies of my poetry collection for friends... I titled the book 'Something Beautiful Travels Far' which I suppose could also read 'Shaista Travels Far'! 

(for 'Poetics: What's in a Name?' a dverse poems prompt) 

HANAFUBUKI

I rarely cry, because I cried so much in the early years post diagnosis of this and that. But yesterday at the hospital the gentle kindness in a friend's 'how are you?' sent me to the tissues. I've been having a rotten time with the disease acting up, which always makes my world narrow, my fears bloom. Meanwhile April is coming to an end and our cherry tree has stretched from white glory to a brown study. 

Angelina (my sister) had some friends over for tea, and their daughter, quiet as a mouse in the house, blossomed into a mixture of Ariel and Puck under the cherry tree. Painstakingly, she gathered individual sakura, collected them into her hat and then poured them over our heads. 'If only,' she mused, 'the petals could fall all at once!' I have since learned this is exactly what happens in Japan after the hanami festival: the sakura falls thick and fast and the word for this is hanafubuki. 

After hospital, coming home to little girls who hand me petals and feathers, is a delight…

I like the floophing, flumping feel of sakura. And so do my nieces who carry the fallen delicates across to me and fix them in my hair. Today I feel more alive than yesterday. Everything that was not good yesterday is better today. Angelina whipped up some baking magic and delivered apple roses to my door even though she is sick with the streaming cold that has beset the twins. I am being kept at arms' length for my own sake.

With that special evening light streaming in this evening, my nose dusted with icing sugar (a hanafubuki of the baking kind), I feel hopeful again. And so it swings. Apparently this is what creative types do. But even in my despair and even in my hope, I am aware of the stories round the globe, and since there is little I can do, for now I shall try to keep up morale. Blow down cherry blossom if you must, I am standing in the sun.

BLOSSOM ON GREEN GABLES

A week into April and it is beginning to look a lot like summer might, just might, roll her majestic skirts into England.
It has been a difficult year for me so far, and I can't say it has become any easier, but a few excitements have come my way and those have distracted me from the meaner intent of the two warring diseases at hand.

It hasn't been the easiest of times for my father either. Sometimes the endless darkness catches up with him. En désespoir, he decided to listen to audiobook versions of Harry Potter and Anne of Green Gables. The Potter hasn't really held him, although he gave his best attention to the understanding of Quidditch. Anne of the gables, the green gables of Prince Edward Island? Now she has of course enchanted him. Suddenly, blossom, and the return of my father's smile. Still a little hesitant, but there is hope. There's always hope where there's Anne Shirley…

This evening I reminded myself of a loyal dog awaiting her beloveds. I kept scurrying to the window to check whether a taxi had drawn up. Not yet. Now? Not yet... The taxi containing several precious bodies of Brother, Sister, Twin Niece 1 and Twin Niece 2. It's the sort of thing Anne was always doing… waiting for Matthew to arrive, waiting for Marilla to decide she didn't mind a girl after all, waiting for Gilbert to wake up and notice the red hair was auburn now. Definitely auburn...

BEWARE THE IDES

Somehow it is already the middle of March, the day that did not bode well for a certain Roman Emperor. What would Caesar make of his day of doom transforming into Mothering Sunday? Into cards and flowers and cups of tea, lovingly made…

Didn't the year only just begin? Was I really in India only a couple of months ago? I feel as though I am lagging behind my own world, and that I shall catch up with myself at some later date, later year.

My mother is painting the bannister and the doors with fresh coats of white paint. Yesterday I walked with my father at an impressive clip, his long strides eating up the overgrown grass of our garden, my feet scuttling to keep time with his. Nothing on the cherry tree, I pronounced. And today, suddenly, he informs me it is in bloom. Snowdrops and daffodils are enjoying their brief coincidental meetings in clusters around the path that leads from my little den to theirs.

For four months I have had a strange occurrence with new eyedrops dilating my pupils. I have mini cataracts in both my eyes too. Cataracts! Sometimes I don't know whose body this is that I am inhabiting. Sometimes I wonder what other shapes my life could have taken had I not destined myself for the writing life. Would I feel less distraught every time my eyes stumbled? How unimaginative I am that I cannot be anything but this addicted wordsmith for life.

But that's just this life. Next life, I shall return as Keeper of Hedgehogs or An Ambassador for Pandas. A Pambassador.

FAITH (the other side of the coin)

Renoir

If I were to marry
it would surely
be springtime in England;

The birds would sing sweetly
all morning and
                     evening
The sun would shine brightly
                  but ever so gently;

My feet would step lightly
on a carpet of daisies...

White as the blossom
pure as the dove,
My heart full and golden
with love.

- Shaista Tayabali, 2013

Young Woman Picking The Fruit Of Knowledge, 1892, Mary Cassatt (for magpie tales)

Looking Into The Sun

I can hardly believe it. In my last post, which was admittedly two weeks ago, I was drawing messy I Heart U's in the snow, trailing my fingers across crystalline branches and feeling deeply for the homeless. And suddenly, now, with the sun, there are buds on the cherry and apple trees. Are the seasons playing games with us, or have I simply reached the age at which it is all scurrying by in a tearing hurry?

I walk out into the sun and stand looking into it, daring it to swallow me whole. I wouldn't mind, but it doesn't oblige. It is a cold sun, so I return to the warmth, inside. The pheasants from last week are not to be found and the muntjacs are causing havoc elsewhere.

During my infusion at the hospital earlier this week, I managed to put together the skeleton of a screenplay to be worked on for this semester. The heroine is of course going to be a much improved version of myself, and lucky for her I am creating a rather interesting hero, who shall travel across oceans to find her. There shall be tragedy and comedy and romance... Or as Philip Henslowe, owner of the Rose Theatre says to William Shakespeare, "You see, Will? Comedy. Love, and a bit with a dog. That's what they want."

I recently saw this brief video of starlings dancing - a murmuration; that's what starlings are called when they gather together this way. There are only blackbirds outside my window, but isn't it lovely to know there are always forms of beauty enchanting someone, somewhere?

Hanami sakura

Spring which starts in March and stays till May is a very busy period in Japan. It is the season when the most beautiful festival of Hanami is celebrated. The Sakura trees (or the cherry blossoms) all over Japan come into bloom for between seven to ten days. People hold outdoor parties to view the cherry blossoms.

Emperor Sage of the Heian period held flower-viewing parties with sake and feasted underneath the blossoming boughs of sakura trees in the Imperial Court in Kyoto. Poems were written praising the delicate flowers, which were seen as a metaphor for life itself, luminous, beautiful, fleeting, ephemeral.

Can one celebrate Hanami even when tragedy occurs? Can one bear the joy of new beginnings all around when one has lost or is grieving?

I ask this because the beloved Japanese family who housed and adopted my younger brother when he was teaching in Japan, have suffered a tragedy. Their younger daughter Yuki, my brother's friend, has died unexpectedly of a massive heart attack.


This is my Hanami sakura poem for her, and for my brother.


Yuki-san

Yuki, the cherry tree

is quietly blooming now

but the wind is so impatient

some petals are floating down.

Yesterday,

my mother and I

stood in the doorway

watching the willow

Green leaves are perfect in spring.

Today,

the scent of rain is here

I am drinking hot tea

sweet with memories

and listening to birds sing.

Yuki, the cherry tree

is empty now

the wind stole all the petals

but the earth is full

with warm white snow

and I know

you will return soon.

The cherry tree

will bloom again

and I know

you will return soon.

Shaista, copyright 2010

images from greg takanama hanami & cherry blossoms anime blog