THE KITE FLIERS

When kites fly 
across blue skies
and border divides,

Gaza and Israel unite.

We make the kites,

we fly the kites, 

over the wells of hate.

We carve the sails,

we choose the colours for the tails;

in ribbons of orange and red and green -

we speak across the steel.

When we fly kites

across blue skies,

Gaza and Israel unite.

© Shaista Tayabali, 2023

In 2011, when I watched the Dispatches documentary on the Children of Gaza, I wrote two poems. The first was for a little girl named Amal, who was nine years old, and suffering terrible migraines from the shrapnel in her head. The second was about the kite flying festival set up along the border, to foster some kind of fun and relief for Palestinian children. A competitive spirit with Israeli children followed, but years later, members of both Hamas and the IDF, grown men, used kites to set fields and warehouses alight. There was an escalation. People died, including a 15 year old Palestinian teenager. The festival was in danger of being cancelled. 

Moments after I had located this second poem, I learnt that last Saturday, the 7th of October, the Israeli family who were responsible for setting up this year’s kite flying festival, were shot by Hamas. Their kibbutz was on the border. My friend, the writer Joanne Limburg, tells me, ‘It is better to have a breakable heart than a hard one.’ So I, we, must find a new way to hope.

GROUNDHOG DAY (MONTH, YEAR)

It’s 2020! Which matches neatly for anyone who likes their numbers mirrored or believes in numerical significance. I think I belong to that crowd ... like when I glance at my watch and see the time is 17:17 or 23:23. It happens so often I take it in my stride as one of those natural oddities. So far so good, or so meaningful.

But does anyone really experience a seismic change for the prosperous? And it usually is prosperity (or a pleasant change in the fate of one’s circumstance) that we are hoping the clock will provide on the twelfth beat of the midnight hour. Luck be a lady tonight. Lady, be lucky tonight. Be mine, lucky lady. Be mine, luck. And somehow sandwiched between one year end and one year start, we hold faith on an inbreath and release, eventually, into the real, once again.

What was real for you? For me, it was the influenza virus. How do you know you have the flu, asked the infectious diseases registrar in the emergency department. How did you know you had the flu, asked the immunology consultant on the ward, the next day. I can taste it, I said. It has a certain flavour, an aroma, a texture known to the memory of my cells. (They were listening to me, thinking, ‘Mm-hmm. Sure, kid, gal, woman. Whatever you say.’) Of course, I knew I had the flu because my nephew brought it on a plane from Singapore. I’m going to call you the NOD, I told him. The Nephew of Doom. Dang it Shai, thanks a lot, said the nephew of doom, taking it on his small chin. He made up for it by reading me several pages of Eva Ibbotson’s ‘Journey to the River Sea’. He read most of the book by himself, which pleased his aunt enormously. He knows about Eva. That she had The Lupus. He's not happy she died of it. But he understands she matters to me. I haven't introduced him to Flannery O'Connor yet... I'm not completely merciless.

One month has caterpillared across the seemingly endless bouts of coughing, fever, vomiting (oh, you know about the 'flu? I shall desist from further details)... my immunology consultant wants to see me again on Monday. Yesterday I had a heart monitor fitted to check on its speedy action (we in the biz call it tachycardia) and a few days ago, I had a ghastly paralysing attack of fibromyalgia. 

Dang it, 2020! To quote my precious nephew of delight. See, Raf? That works too. NOD. Nephew of Delight. Also, Nieces of Delight. All four of my delights are just that. 'Don't eat me!' they say. 'Cook me!' they say. 'Are you listening to me?' they demand. 'Copy me!' they command. Alright, 2020, if that's all you have in store for me, along with this writing m'larky, I'll take it.      

TREASURE HUNT

It circles round just as fast

and soon you find yourself 

at the end (the seeming end,

really, just another beginning:

another airport, another birthday,

Easter, Christmas, New Year).

And still the feeling 

of leaving something behind,

but tripping ahead anyway;

each day, each month 

a further clue, on this 

treasure hunt we call life.

© Shaista Tayabali, 2019

Arts and Crafts Corners brought me great joy over Christmas... this one a very reminding spot in the house, even after two of my nieces have tripped across the oceans back to school and friends. The children of my life come and go, I visit and leave... but small creations remain as memory).  

Artist Credits: Various Tayabali-Edwards

Poetry Prompt... Dverse
(P.s. what does the Inside Of Your Brain look like?) 

DUCK SURGERY: A LAST TAIL OF THE YEAR

It wasn’t her tail that broke.

The title was misleading. I’m sorry. It was a broken leg. As clearly stated in her medical record. 

Her name is Emerald. But she was christened Esmeralda in the doorway of her first home. She was born with green boots and bought with love, but sadly her adoptive co-parent turned out to be less than keen.

One day, I walked across the road with my twin nieces and there in the front porch on her way out (little did she know) was the matching duck to my own William (of the blue boots).

My neighbour was thrilled to pack Esmeralda off for a ‘holiday’ and here, in our home, she has stayed. 

Not without incident.

Back to duck surgery.

William lost a boot soon after the arrival of the twins so Emerald is in good company. This is all my fault of course - I ought to be a more responsible duck owner, but it’s Christmas and the New Year is almost upon us and I am just too tired, shattered, exhausted, knackered, whacko blotto, to quote my friend Colette... 

I am hanging on by silver threads and the golden web of imagination. Cob web... I feel old and in need of hibernation. But a new day, a new year, is on its way, and must be attended to. Some energy must be found from somewhere. How? Where?

In friendship. In kindness. In the generosity of spirit and attention.

Are you listening to me?

I am listening.

But do you really hear me?

I am trying.

Samuel Beckett wrote, ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Fail again. Fail better.’ Beckett seems like he was a kind man, with the best of human interest at heart. There is something about growth, new growth, in the old broken parts of us. We break, and we make something... new? Better? Something, anyway,

Neil Gaiman, another kind man, put it like this ... ‘I hope that in the year to come, you make mistakes, because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing the world... So... make new mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life...’

Or ducks with broken legs... or bodies with broken immune systems... on we go, onwards, ever onwards, the old and the new... gathering extraordinary memories. The tale of William and Esmeralda really all began with my beloved friend Mary sending me Jemima Puddle Duck for my birthday in August - a gift of cheer. Mary thought I would appreciate the graceful lines of a duck in pink wellingtons. Well, I did. I do. And so the family grew...

HAPPY NEW YEAR my dearest readers, thank you for the love, concern and the memories. Happy new year to us all xxx