The Gifts of Time

The Gifts of Time
pile neatly around my soul
not the Christmas
and birthday time gifts
but the abstract fruits
of kindness, harmony,
friendship and trust;
the Invisibility Cloaks
of a lucky lifetime.

And what about the little regrets?
The unbought thing
the unvisited place
the unspoken, unwritten word?
All tuck away neatly
in the Great Pockets of Time
awaiting another explorer.

The songs I have not sung
stream merrily from another's lips
And dreams someone else has spun
dance a tango on my hips.

The Gifts of Time
are the funny miracles
of quick escapes and
quicker encounters
down narrow lanes
and atop mountains;

there the voices speak
there the souls gather

and sing.




I wrote this poem on my last night in Sing. I read it to Dad a few days ago, here in Shelford, and he said it captured his own experience exactly. He had been feeling regretful, of all the things he had not seen, the places, the people's faces. The holiday he could have had, if the fates were different, had been playing on his mind. Then this poem, and suddenly he seems to have relaxed. It is not the nature of regret that he dwells on anymore, but the gifts that were his. The dancing! He danced with my mother on the first day we arrived and he never really stopped. Now that is a gift of a lucky lifetime.

Shangri-La

The days pass me by. And I forget to write.

This is the floating world, the Great Artist's Illusion, a dream that is more real to me than the last ten years have been.

I don't pinch myself. I don't need to remind myself to be here, to remember. I am here with every fibre of my being.

I am in the Garden City. My eyes trail bouganvillea, birds of paradise, frangipani everywhere, orange embellishments weaving in between cars, buildings, people.

I am on the sand, in the sea, swimming in the rain.

There were white butterflies at the wedding. There were two yellow butterflies dancing on the angels at the white washed Armenian Church. There are thunderstorms and smiling friendly faces.

As the Singaporeans say.... "Happiness, can? Can! Can can can!!"

My brother had asked me to write something for the wedding, but I found it impossible to do so while in England. An hour before the ceremony though, on the beach, with the sea singing in my ears, I wrote and later recited the following words...

An Island Marriage

We pray for rain sometimes

Sometimes we pray for sun

In between the heavens dance

This game was all for fun

How but in tears and laughter

Can two families become one?

Here by the rocks and butterflies

Here where the palm trees blow

Here our hearts are cradled

by a love that continues to grow

A love lapped by the seas of time

from the Phillipines to Japan

across English borders

towards Indian shores

We gather our prayers together

and send our blessings forwards

to our beautiful married couple

the beloved wedded ones

to my brother and my sister

Maria-Theresa and Irfan.

On the Cusp of Knowing

The whole village knows. Yesterday at our friend Victoria's summer lunch party, the impending wedding of a Tayabali son danced from lip to lip like a happy cabbage butterfly drunk on nectar and petal.

Everyone loves a good holiday chat, and who doesn't love a wedding when it isn't theirs to plan?

I danced around, much like that butterfly, in startling green shoes, green hat and a mega watt smile, chirping and twittering and offering green guacamole on toast.

When I tired, I snuck into the conservatory, and drank sweet tea under a bower of bougainvillea. Green and flowers are my battery chargers and I soon flitted out again.

I am making place cards with dried flowers. I find myself greedily eyeing Other People's flowers and rather avariciously creeping my fingers towards said flowers before my mother smacks my fingers away. I am taking England with me - bluebells and daisies, forget-me-nots, primula, sage and lovage. I wish I could take the wisteria. It has never looked lovelier, bloomier; thick with purple scent, dripping with promise, the wisteria is on the cusp of knowing.

Down by the Vicarage, the wisteria are just as beautiful. It has been the home of my father's dear friend Ralph for many years. It boasts one of the most artistic and carefully tended gardens, and there Ralph decided to end his days. The cancer came fast and hit hard, and my father misses the aimless tuneful whistling that burst out of Ralph every time he left our house. "Goodbye, Cho!" he'd say to my father. "Goodbye kid!" he'd say to my mother.

Weddings and whistlings goodbye. It is ever thus.

Where the Frangipani Blows, Only the Cobweb Knows

Feels like rain

hot and cool

swathes of muslin breeze

pour silently

into me

Until thunder comes

and my heart breaks open

great cascades tumble

Out,

where the blue skies

reign

and I am no longer
a prisoner of pain.

19th of May. Ten days since I last wrote. My subscribers and followers are dropping like flies! Should I apologise? I am including a watercolour by my father and an oil on canvas by my mother to make amends. I have been back into hospital for the second round of monoclonals, this time without the supplementary treatment of immunoglobulins. And my body is not happy. I feel frail and fragile and temporary. I am a piece of cheese being grated by a very thorough hand. I am grains of gritty sand.

I am also the sister of a brother about to be wedded. Did I tell you? The wedding that was supposed to happen last year was derailed by my hospital adventures. And now, here it is, almost upon us. Ten days before I leave for a hot hot country. Ten days before I leave these cobwebs behind and find a frangipani me.

Ma

At the worst, the very worst
You are there
When the mirror breaks
and my heart,
You ache
and your aching
heals me.

When I can never be right
and my scars illuminate
You perceive me
perfect and whole.

No words.

There are no words.
Only time, passing,
and Love,
that ever presence,
holding us close.


- Shaista



Maaaaaaaa!!!!!!!
Happy Mother's Day, beautiful, talented Perveen - the one who makes it all possible.
Without you, nothing.

With you, every day is Mother's Day :)

Orange

Orange
has many shades

It is the colour of change

Orange is what you feel

in a flirty skirt

and golden gladiator sandals.

Orange makes love

with her spirit

Has her own chakra

Turns cartwheels

on a national flag.

Can be eaten

by the dozen

in Haiti, on a hot day,

as you climb miles

of dusty track

to visit a dying child.

Orange can save your life.

Sometimes, very rarely

Orange

can be misunderstood

misused, even abused.

Whose eyes are these
that cannot see

the aura of good?

Not the ones concealed

beneath

the complementary black hood.

The list of requirements
is simple.
You have to hate.

Declare yourself an Agent

of the Enemy of the State.

Then wait

for the bombs to detonate,

while the detainees contemplate

Who hates who

more?

Just so you know

I am thinking of you

Brothers of the Bay

in your isolated cages

in your suffocating spaces

I am trying to free you

I am trying to believe in you

Orange.

Poem, copyright 2010, Shaista

In the Spring of Five Hundred Tulips

In the Spring of five hundred tulips

the butterfly arrived again.

A brief flying visit

to examine the cherry and birch

before her summer sojourn.

I did see her.

I did not imagine her.

But that was weeks ago.

The tulips are fading now,

blown out, rusty at the edges,

pouting at the heat

creeping in.

We put out worms

for the birds, dried and brittle,

but it was the monkjack

who ate the tulips,

a feast of five hundred tulips,

while we waited and watched

the end of Spring.

Rain is in the earth today.

I am walking on rain today.

Hot yellow daisies grow fast
and thick around my feet.

And where the cherry tree stands,
the green is littered with white starlight.

Fallen blossom everywhere.

I am walking on stars.

And reading aloud from the stories of saints
to the listening birds and flies and worms...

I will be in hospital as you read this, attached to the drips for monoclonal antibody therapy.

I haven't been doing much lately, just hurting, like an ancient grandfather clock that needs winding soon. What is that lovely English saying? I am running Out of Puff!

So for now, I shall walk on a little more. On rain. And fallen stars.

Real Women Have Curves

Real women who jump,
start revolutions

Her feet mark earth

when they fall.

Real women have curves,

dreams, tears,

places to store

the unbroken seams

of her identities.

Hijabi pilots, poets,
new world leaders,
queens, ministers,

saints and healers.

Real women have curves,

throw curves,
Arc the courses

of other lives
Are loathed or envied

or villified

Become saintly

and sanctified

though she never aspired
to inspire

the quiet housewife

to fire.

- Shaista Tayabali, 2009

images: some of my favourite real women, Queen Rania and Michelle Obama, Mother Theresa and Lady Diana, Dr Maya Angelou

The title of this piece is also the title of a play by Josefina Lopez, which was eventually made into a film starring America Ferrera - both are just wonderful!

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

Easter, A Moveable Feast

From the blog post of April 12th, Easter Sunday. 
Day 40. Forty days and forty nights. Wasn't Jesus tested for forty days and nights before Gethsemane? The central line tubing in my jugular was placed successfully but the three access tubes connected to the main catheter weigh heavy on my neck. The last four days have been so unbearable that I too feel I have been abandoned and forsaken by the One I trusted to watch over me and ease my suffering.

I have been remembering my Easter of a year ago. It was a special time, unforgettable. Many of the days and nights of my 84 days in hospital are remembered now only through my blog, through moments of lucid poetry. But the Easter weekend is clear. I had a new consultant, a temporary Easter consultant. And he was extraordinarily kind to me. He arrived at the hospital every day, on his bike, to see me. He would stride quickly into the room, greet my father respectfully, draw up a chair, and smile. "Now Shaista, what are you up to today?!!"

And I would release pent up passion and vociferous semi-medical jargon, making completely unreasonable demands such as, "Are you with me or against me?" and reasonable demands such as, "I need a blood transfusion now!"

We mark our lives by different anniversaries. Easter is one of mine. I am here. Alive. How could it be otherwise on a day of resurrection? How do you give thanks for the miracle of life?

I read something interesting today about the holy city of Jerusalem. As you know, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the ultimate destination for any Jerusalem pilgrimage, and six Christian denominations consider themselves its custodians - the Roman Catholics, the Greek Orthodox, Armenian apostolics, the Coptics, Ethiopians and the Syriacs. But did you also know that for a thousand years, since the time of Saladdin, the main entrance to the Church has been entrusted to two Muslim families, the Joudeh, who have the key, and the Nusseibeh, who have been custodians since the days of Caliph Omar in 637. A Joudeh family member is still on hand twice a day to bring the key to the door which is locked and unlocked by a Nusseibeh.

This beautiful merging of unexpected histories, the unimaginable kindnesses of being human, the resurrection of hope, this is Easter for me.

photography: Guy Raivitz, a Coptic nun at the doorway of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem