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.)

WINTERING

'A surprising cluster of novels and fairy tales are set in the snow. Our knowledge of winter is a fragment of  childhood, almost innate. All the careful preparations that animals make to endure the cold, foodless months, hibernation and migration, deciduous trees dropping leaves. This is no accident. The changes that take place in winter are a kind of alchemy, an enchantment performed by ordinary creatures to survive. Dormice laying on fat to hibernate, swallows navigating to South Africa, trees blazing out the final weeks of autumn. 

It is all very well to survive the abundant months of spring and summer, but in winter we witness the full glory of nature's flourishing in lean times. Plants and animals don't fight the winter. They don't pretend it's not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives they lived in summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Wintering is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight, but that's where the transformation occurs. 

Winter is not the death of the life cycle but its crucible. It's a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing these deeply unfashionable things - slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting - is a radical act now, but it is essential.' - Katherine May, 'Wintering'

I listen to a lot of podcasts, and one of the most gentle, meditative podcasts is 'On Being' by Krista Tippet, who believed many years ago, that despite a staunch move towards atheism, plenty of folk are connected to spiritual beliefs, religious or otherwise. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, who died a few months ago, was a wonderful listen. Katherine May read from her latest book 'Wintering', and I found it of great comfort that my recent hibernating ways would not alarm a bear. To a human, sleeping through the morning and well into the afternoon would seem a waste, and perhaps even ring alarm bells of depression or an internal organ in trouble. I want to believe that I will come around to earlier waking and light filled days as spring and summer arrive. For now, I want only to sleep when I can, as much as I can. Sleeping through light does mean I have missed the heady photography options for yesterday's snow day, so I have filched (with permission) my friend Colette's morning photo shoot. Meanwhile, this evening I will stretch into a yoga class (bears stretch too - he wasn't called Yogi Bear for nothin') and later I will toast my parents' wedding anniversary. There's a candle of warmth to enjoy - love that endures, by wintering through. 

All photographs by Colette Barrere, except the last one, which was taken by Chris Boland

THE NAMES OF THINGS

Taking off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes
gazes out at me, behind the window frame,
half content to be in Billy Collins’ world,
half wishing to be me;

cross-legged in the evening sun,
drinking rose petal tea.

I can name the Yellow Rose, the Frilly Poppy,
the Bee, longing for that same tea;
the half-eaten, bruised cherries,
the guzzling, drunken, blackbird feast.

Deep in the shadows, lazy snakes
of ivy curl, and the wind is a Tempest again.

I walk among the unnamed things,
the secret, hidden lives;
I pronounce the names of Latinate things,
and trip on the words and smile:

Cerastium tomentosum, snow in summer.
Gallium odoratum, stars in spring.
Lavendula angustifolia,
where the herb garden sings.

© Shaista Tayabali, 2020

Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes is the title of one of Billy Collins' poetry collections. He is one of my favourite poets, a playful and compassionate storyteller. Our cherry tree is slowly turning brown. If only the bright white blossom would last longer, but alas the winds have tumbled the petals down. These are slow times, which suit the person used to slowness (however much she may have fought the way it was forced upon her). I hope you are all coping with the pace newly forced upon you. I am determined to learn the names of things, which a poet really ought to know... but what else are we here to do, other than learn, forget, and promise ourselves we will learn again?  

FOOTSTEPS OF A MUNTJAC

From June to June I don't know who I am,

though I walk the old familiar paths, 

tracing and retracing into muscle and sinew

Who are you?

Who are you?

Who are you?

I am a Pokemon hunter

with chronic illness and no car, no invisibility 

cloak to protect me. 

I am a daughter, but not a mother.

I am a Queen of this, 

but not that.

I am a traveller who stays still for so long

she forgets she once walked 

among Inukshuk, and between redwoods. 

I am a reader who ceased to read.

Instead, I watch a bright screen move me

while my eyes and brain exchange 

the same, tired greeting

Here again?

Here again.

Here. Again.

A muntjac looked across the field 

at me, not trusting the scent of me.

We share this earth so cautiously. 

(c) Shaista Tayabali, 2020

prompt from Dverse Poets, ('What day is it anyway?'); image from Wildlife Watch: Forest of Dean

inspiration: my friend Helena, who walked in the garden with me, sunshine on our faces, muntjac footprints beneath our feet, and the wild world of hope blinking in the possibilities (Helena reminds me... I keep forgetting, am too tired, too sick, gripped by infections and fibromyalgia.) 

POKEMON GO! (AMONG WOODS AND WISTERIA)

Friends who live away, say
England's green is unlike any other.

So I stop by the bridges,
and let the green wash me clean.

Eyes, ears, nose and... breathe.
I know I live in a conservationist's dream.

The birds mark time with me.
Chweet! Trreet! Prreet!

Have you ever tried to transcribe
the song of a bird? It is beyond me.

I catch Pokémon as I walk - the game
that reflects our real world biome.

On my phone, in the palm of my hand,
friendly creatures snarl and land

feet from me, greeting me.
Old worlds, new worlds,

we are the other, we are each other.

All it takes is a different sense of seeing,
that I am you, and you are me.

Captured now and then,
and now again free.

(c) Shaista Tayabali, 2019
inspired by Anmol for Dverse Poetics: On Wandering & Observing)

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. 

STINGING NETTLE

My 7 year old nephew and I sit together to write a poem about his summer holidays in England - it’s all very well to assume a holiday is only about ice cream and laughter, but what about the unexpected? Maybe even the unpleasant?

STINGING NETTLE
by Rafael Tayabali (with some help from his Aunty Shai)

It hurt. It really hurt,
That stinging nettle I found.

It was only yesterday,
In a place far, far away

Where the pigs and cows live,
And English shire horses roam.

I thought the pain would last forever,
But before I knew it, it was gone.

‘Scruffles! We have no paper left!’
Says my Aunty Shai. So goodbye.

(A poem for dverse poets Open Link Night) 

WHEN THE STORM IS ABOUT TO BREAK

Carl Brandien Hurricane at Tarpon Bend, September 15, 1945

That rumbling rolling
Coming from thunder sound -
The storm is about to break.

Open the window
And the raindrops wet me,
Forehead, cheek and chin -

Look down to write you
Into a poem, and lightning
Flashes beside me.

The puddles are jumping,
The willow sashaying,
And then just as quick, everything stills.

I turn away. Light candles.
Run a bath of lavender
And lily scented froth.

Sometimes you fear it,
Sometimes you don't -
The thunder rolls back for her audience.

(c) Shaista Tayabali, 2017 for Open Night at Dverse Poets 

Edgar Degas Woman in a Bath Sponging her Leg c.1883

AN ORANGE SLUG IN THE PATH OF A RATTATA

They came. They conquered. They left. With a piece of my heart tucked into the soles of their feet.

Last night, around 2am, the owls were busy tap dancing on the roof of the Coach House, the converted garage I have called home for the past three years. I thought of Raf, who sometimes worries about me in the midst of all these owls. But he understands I'm nocturnal. 'I'm nocturnal, too!' he declared, last summer in Portugal. He was four then. At five, he is now a skilful Pokémon catcher. One sunny day, he and I combed the entire village, collecting measly Pokéballs at the phone box library and finding mostly Rattatas and Pidgeys (and a Mr Mime!) - he got stung by thorny ivy snakes, was shocked to discover roses have thorns and the duck pond from last year seemed to have vanished, so all in all it was 'the worst day, ever.' 

But! We met an orange slug. Have you ever? Bright and burnished, it looked nothing like its ordinary grey camouflage-ready mollusc cousin - Raf and I were gripped by the drama. Of course neither of us knew we were looking at Arion vulgaris, the cannibalistic roadkill eating variety. Arion vulgaris - what a name! I'm quite partial to the term vulgaris because in the late thirteenth century that is how lupus was referred to - lupus vulgaris.

I didn't blog last month - one of the rare months of complete absence. I have been struggling with chronic tachycardia most of the year. I hope there is nothing too sinister, cardiologically speaking - fingers crossed, anyway - but at the same time, almost twenty years of lupus, steroids, chemo and immuno therapies have no doubt taken their toll. My heart is overworked, but never under appreciated. Did I tell you I've finished my book? My last chapters are all dedicated to my heart, wondrous organ that it is. 

While the smallest loves of my life are far away in other countries, I am head down, writing to publishing agents. I rise to meet the day and either crumble back to bed or send my book with love to strangers. Wish me luck as I wave it goodbye!

NIGHT OWL FRIEND

(for Lola Roberts)

If I could believe
this was fated,
each hour, each act -

infinite mistakes,
all carefully counted,
I might relax

and spin lazily
in my own orbit,
name my moons

and be fearless.
That was ever the plan
from the moment

I didn't die.
Or maybe long before
my mother named me

Shaista -

when I was a twinkle
in the sky.
Do parents still say that?

I believed it.
I believed I was a star
fallen plucked precious

jewel. If I could believe
then,
why not now?

© Shaista Tayabali, 2015
screen print 'Harvest Moon' by Sally Elford - you can find more of her work at http://www.sallyelford.co.uk

THE DREAM WORK OF SNOWDROPS

'...I wanted
the past to go away, I wanted
to leave it, like another country; I wanted
my life to close, and open
like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
where it falls
down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,
whoever I was, I was

alive 
for a little while…'

- excerpt from 'Dogfish' by Mary Oliver

It's a funny thing being a poet, and reading the poetry of greater poets and finding yourself therein, and wondering what there is left for you to write, but then discovering that you, the small poet, and they, the great poet, are inspired by the same poet, and so you are connected... I discover in a radio interview that Mary Oliver reads Rumi every day. And that her poems have been becoming shorter as a result. Because once you have said the thing, what need is there for further decoration?

Snowdrops make me feel that way. Also tulips in a vase which remind me of the tulip giver, my mother whose birthday it is tomorrow…

A LADYBIRD AMONG BUTTERFLIES AND SNAILS

A recent visitor to the farm was a 4 year old boy, a Noo Yawker, whose finer appreciation for the life of snails and ants was charming. Something nipped at him while he was pond dipping but once the sting had passed, he enlightened me on mosquito larvae and water boatmen - the characters in our collection. August is here, and so there is still time for Being Outside. I was sitting under a tree the other day (on my beautiful purple meditation cushion that once belonged to Sister Chan Khong from Plum Village), eating cherries, writing my beloved friend Mary a letter...

when a ladybird crawled up my arm and settled on to me for the afternoon and evening.
Before nightfall, I thought I better put her somewhere less peculiar than the crook of my elbow and the nape of my neck (she was a tireless traveller!) but I had already fallen in love. If I were a 4 year old Noo Yawker I would never have parted with her!

I have not been having an easy time of it this year. Nothing earth shatteringly original - simply the dull ache of a life with illness and the sadness that comes with the knowledge that I am not in the swim of things once more. The last time I felt so painfully out of the loop of my contemporaries was when my life with lupus first began... but I am a writer and where there are words there is a place for me. Where there are trees and the natural order of things, there is a place for me. So I breathe, pay attention and write!

GLI ESPERTI DEI FIORI

It was pouring rain yesterday when I left for surgery. The pink roses were bowed in head and spirit. "Buck up!" I urged, "we've a long day ahead." It wasn't a long procedure, although might have been nicer if the Blue Eyed Surgeon had indulged me in a wee song. No such luck. I wearily warbled "It's a long way to Tipperary..." to encourage the Irish in him to join in, but he grimly persisted in needling, draining, anaesthetising...  This was me all day yesterday...

I howled a lot, silently and sometimes, loudly, dramatically, but mostly I felt as an animal would, unable to scratch or lick the wound clean of pain. My kindhearted neighbour Victoria stopped by with a cold eye mask and on Twitter, the Girls were endlessly comforting and funny. As I approached sleep, I dreaded waking to more burning. But it does feel easier today, and this afternoon I answered a knock at the door to behold...

Thank you Kathy from Twitter, thank you for my cup of tea-roses. They are perched just beside my bed and with the sun pouring in, today is so much better than yesterday. Gli esperti dei fiori - you are the flower expert. Indeed you all are, expert at arranging flowers and cards and love to be sent to a place and a person who is deeply appreciative of every heartfelt, healing gesture.

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?

A Walk In The Snow

for Joanna Haybittle

I walk in the snow
with the green grass

just beginning to show

I am calmed
and grow fearless
with each step

Gathering nothingness
listening to emptiness
fill herself

with birdsong
        and the crunch of ice
        and the sense of cold
        finally, taking me
by surprise.


© Shaista Tayabali, 2012
Joanna was the second daughter of my beloved friend Mary Haybittle, and her funeral takes place today. Can only pray for it to be a peaceful, blessed sort of day with the angels singing and listening in wait.