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... 

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

BISAN

Bisan,

your cat came to me in my dream.

White, yet not entirely - she was real -
not as a cloud, she was eating lime.
Yes, I was holding a round green lime 
in my hand and she stole it to play.
Cats love to play, don’t they?
I say this as one who has never owned a cat 
or even, I confess, known or loved a cat.
But this cat, your cat, I presume -

although she was perhaps any 

of the lost cats doomed this Nakba - 
this cat, I say, knew me well enough 

to drape herself, Queen like, across 

my throat, as I was lying down in my bed - 
not the bed of my English home, 

in the country that questions me on home,
but the home of my dreams, 

the bed in my dreams, 

where I grew from baby to girl, 

to on the verge of something between 

girl and woman to be.
Protecting my throat, but also 

preventing me from moving, rising, 

perhaps even speaking - 

she was everything, 

commanding the wholeness of me. 
I feel her now - a heavy white scarf, 

a sacred promise, bound to me, 

as I to her - a symbol 

beyond my understanding. 

Ya Rahman. Ya Raheem. 

Ameen. 

© Shaista Tayabali, 2023

Is anyone able to write much, if anything, at this time? This poem came, as my poems come, fast, as if in dictation, from a place of necessity, to tell someone something in the only way available to me. Part of me feels as if there has never been a genocide experienced this way - in the palms of our hands, in real time. And yet, the power of reading the testimonies of Primo Levi and Victor E. Frankl, not to ever forget Anne Frank, many years after the facts, did not render my heart any less broken. I say broken, but it is not yet so. Just chipped, cracked, rust filled, despairing of being human. This poem is dedicated to one of several young Gaza journalists I follow, like millions do, on Instagram, hoping, willing her to survive. She is Bisan Owda @wizard_bisan1, and the others are Motaz Azaiza @motaz_azaiza, Plestia Alaqad @byplestia, Yara Eid @eid_yara. Others have been killed already. I inch forward in this mural, baring my teeth through tears. 

(First image via Bisan's instagram page @wizard_bisan1

Second is a mural I am working on at home

Poem participating in DVerse Poems Open Link night)

THE WIRE

Plugged in

or plugged out,

no escape.

Even the monastery,

even the future 

of bees -

a stranger 

even cut down 

our trees.

We march to its beat,

www.unfree

© Shaista Tayabali, 2023 (shared at DVerse Open Nights)

What are your thoughts on FOMO? Fear Of Missing Out. It doesn’t feel like a young person’s social media phenomenon. It feels a very real contemplation when we are no longer (just) aware of our own mortality, but also the extinction of our planet and all species. This wire that connects us all, it’s a good thing, I think. But freedom from it… is that even possible anymore? Strangers did really cut down trees at the bottom of our garden one night in the middle of a storm. The next day, the wreckage of living beings, and shredded fences. There was no reason for it, surely, other than improving someone's internet connection? 

But then you type in 'female artist painting the internet' and you find the art of 16 year old Dimitra Milan, and suddenly you are inside a world shared only because of the wire. And I wouldn't miss this for anything. Anything, but those fallen trees.

(For more of Milan's work, here is the original link at Bored Panda and her current work.)

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 

 

MY MOTHER'S PALETTE

 

It begins with my mother. Food always begins 

with my mother. It tires me when people ask if I can 

cook a curry. As if all we eat is curry. As if 

a country the size of a continent, could ever, only, 

feed itself on curry.

 

I began to chafe at that word, long ago. 

When it boxed my mother in. When there was never 

room to explain she is Parsi. Zoroastrian. 

A portraitist, arranging food on a plate, the way 

she carves paint onto canvas. 

 

Her palette is sometimes pastel, sometimes oil, 

a mix of ochre, mustard, turmeric or rai, 

coriander for greens: peas, lime, okra, French beans; 

purple aubergines. Eggs for any day,

any possible way.

 

Her grandmother, and mine,

both believed in butter. Their girlhoods

were for sali: salty potato matchsticks; 

sev mamra: puffy rice popping; and ice

cream cones, for cool Sunday mornings.

 

Now, on special occasions, or just for love, hours 

of building biryani, sifting, sieving daal, and preparing 

every roti. Pomfret, if she can find it, lightly fried 

with salt and pepper. And on the side, cachumber.

Cachuber? (Here the rare parental disagreement.)

 

Every birthday, garlanded, with a carefully burned 

palace of semolina, milk, sugar, petals, raisins. 

She calls it rava, or ravo, depending.

 

A small tribe, the Parsis, in a vast civilisation; 

in a country swooning in flavour, they make their 

meals as moreish as my father's people did. 

The Bedouin desert tribes still thrum within 

the meat that hangs off girded steel.

 

You have to garment your fingers to really taste 

your food, and share a single thali

without disturbing the portions.

 

When I was a boy, he begins, but the memory 

is too much for a cold November day in England. 

I remember, he tries again, his fingers curling, 

savouring mutton as it melts, paya, haleem,

falooda with chiku, thick buffalo cream.

 

It is May when he speaks, gulmohar season. 

In the heat, scarlet tiger claws watch the drip 

of mango run down his chin – King Alphonso, 

the best – and bursting her stays, sitaphal – 

Custard Apple Queen.

 

Quinoa is recommended to the girl with the wolf 

disease: mashed avocado, maca, kale, apple 

cider vinegar. Cacao helps to sweeten spinach, 

chia, goji, but even as I juice and blend, my heart 

belongs elsewhere, on someone else's palate.

 

In her conservatory, she tends to bougainvillea 

and hibiscus, coaxing Indus valley plants 

to befriend their European compatriots. 

And up from her kitchen, magic weaves 

her spell. Food never tastes so well

as when my mother makes it.

Shaista Tayabali 

food prompt, at dverse poets 

 

Images via Parsi News, The Bedouin Blog, Persian Food Tours

THE TIME MACHINE

 

I wish I could go back,

into the future,

and meet my Dad

when he was little, says Raf.

 

You can, I say, when you’re older.

Meaning transcendental meditation.

 

Oh, somebody made a time machine?

Excited now. Hopeful.

No, but you can do it

with your mind. You can do

 

anything with your mind, I say, 

having learned this the slow way.

 

Not like Raf, who is learning

gifts with speed – 

his seven-year-old self

unrecognizable from mine.

 

And my brother, meeting him –

a father, in a different time. 

Shaista Tayabali, 2018

I wrote this poem when Raf was seven, and we were milling about the tiny Indonesian eco island of Nikoi, thinking about big things like time travel. I haven't travelled since that summer, and most of us haven't travelled for two years now... so as we embark upon Year Three of The Pandemic, I thought this would be a hopeful poem to share. The photograph below is in 'Lupus, You Odd Unnatural Thing', in black and white. I asked Raf's permission to use it in my book. 'Of course,' he said. 'Why are you even asking me?' But I was trying to be respectful - after all, a baby then, a ten year old now, will one day be a grown man... maybe even 'a father, in a different time.'

photographs taken by I. Tayabali

poem participating in DVerse Poets community Open Link Night...

THAT LONG AWAITED THING

I stumble on a root
as I pass the prettiest cottage,
the one that makes me look twice, anyway;
there's no one around
and then, suddenly, there are, 
hordes of us, out for the sun.

I am cosy enough, bobble hat

and turtle neck, winter boots and long black hair -

well, I say black - I mean tiger

striped, the covid Bengal look, 

plumped up by inertia,

endangered only by sleepy somnolence.

Past more roots and the London 50 sign,

ochre homes and ochre leaves,

leaves burning on the friendly wind,

banks of snowdrops,

blackbirds heralding

that long awaited thing. 

I park myself by the berry tree,

damping my book on a mossy wall - 

these are covid tricks,

for covid times,

when paths are lean, and 

not a mask in sight. 

The 'SHE' fell off the Shelford sign

at the Chinese take away - 

a mark of this year's wear and tear;

the mayor and the spy 

put up plaques of their own -

a mark of wealth and long roots sown. 

The poet snails by,

tithing her time,

she was grown when she arrived,

and though loved, unseen, unknown,

she became that awaited thing 

and SHE WROTE HERE will do. 

© Shaista Tayabali, 2021

Photography by me, except for the blackbird in full throated song by Kathrin Swoboda. 

Linked to Dverse Poets for Thursday poetry night ...

BY THE SHORE

It takes a long time.

I wander for hours, years, miles

through countries, continents.

Sometimes there is water,

sometimes sand.

I return to these, and finally

make my stand.

I am five. I am seven.

In the water, by the shore;

I hold a twig up, brandished sword.

Later, in the quiet play,

away from salt sea spray

and the camera recording our day,

I find myself alone - 

‘a prettyish sort of wilderness’

as Austen will describe it, later.

Everything, later, to come.

For now, crouched on brackish sand,

barefoot in shorts, planting

and uprooting joy.

© Shaista Tayabali, 2021

(recited at DVerse Poets Open Link night)

It's the new year, I think... although my Christmas tree is still up with all the little mice and the twinkling lights. I am redoing the six week yoga course I did at the end of last year, just so that my body doesn't forget how to move. Bed, which was always the most comfortable spot in the house, is an even more huggable place than ever. Especially in winter, under a cosy duvet, looking out at the bare limbs of our willow. There was a time when Mum was tempted to have it cut because the roots are tearing up the courtyard, but I am so glad no decision was made. It would have been lonely without the willow keeping me company. I attended a poetry and trauma workshop this weekend and after leading us through a visualisation meditation, the writing prompt was to remember a happy place and write about it... this is the memory that returned after much wandering through my mind... 

THE SOUND GLASS MAKES WHEN IT BREAKS

A tiny bowl slipped out of my hands this evening

as I stopped to gaze at a bird in flight,

light streaming from her wings, the curve 

unimaginable to me, heavy on the floor of the world.

It was a dessert bowl, crystal, part of a set.

They are always part of a set, these cups 

and saucers that fall and smash around my feet.

A pool of diamonds glinting in concrete cracks,

so beautiful, so dangerous. My heart missed 

not a beat, as though inured now 

to my unintentional, careless ways. 

Sweep after sweep is not enough; 

my faithful eyes find more shards, jewel bright, 

shining still, for my faithless eyes. 

© Shaista Tayabali, 2020

A few days ago I heard the news that my friend and MA tutor, the Cambridge poet and novelist Caron Freeborn, had left this world, suddenly, and almost without notice. I didn’t know she had been recently diagnosed with cancer; I only knew I had been thinking of her and missing her. I wrote to her, but only silence came. When I heard the news, the silence was even more numbing. In the wake of a poet leaving, the air sounds a little different. 

Into the companion of my shattered glass bowl, I floated something green, and every day she grows, reminding me of something... something I forget when the light is bleak.

(a poem shared with Dverse Poets, on Open Link Night)

Caron Freeborn: An Essay on Poetry and Autism