RAINSPARK

All day long,
the ceaseless rain;

All day long
the sweet refrain:

He walked this way, once,
surely, we will meet again?

© Shaista Tayabali, 2012 

A poet wrote - 'The tears I shed yesterday have become rain'. These past few days, England has seen more rain than she usually does at this time. While the gardens are joyful, the storms wreak havoc in people's lives. A few days ago marked the passing of someone very special, and the rain echoes the tears of those he left behind. But everyday, for a brief spark, a ray of sun pours through and suddenly, the world is clearer, brighter, lovelier than ever.

images from here and here

Where Do My Poems Go?

While I have come to know, recognise and love the readers who comment regularly on my blog, I cannot help but be curious about Heilbronn, Baden-Württemberg and Barreiro, Setubal. I am most particularly fascinated by Albacete, Castilla-La Mancha! Who, I wonder, are you?

It is such a pleasure knowing, thanks to blog widgets and gadgets, that Tangerang, Jawa Barat and Petaling Jaya, Wilayah Persekutuan visit me regularly. But such a mystery too, about you, Damascus, Dimashq, you, Braintree, Massachusetts, and you, Floirac, Aquitaine.

Perhaps a mystery you shall all remain. But today I want to thank you from San Antonio, Texas to Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, from Arak, Markazi to Bernardsville, New Jersey, from Atlanta, Georgia to Battle, East Sussex. Never was geography more pleasurable than here and now, with my poems arriving on your computer screens. Thankyou for reading me, all of you.

OBEISANCE

Her face always existed,
the poetry came later;


When the leaf finally fell,
his heart bounded to catch her.


© Shaista Tayabali, 2012
Red Roofs by Marc Chagall, courtesy magpie tales


I love the stories flung into Marc Chagall's paintings - always something new and fascinating to discover. There are love stories here, odes and supplications, but arcing over everything, a tree, a forest. Which is how I niftily weave in the fact that, on retreat, I took my five mindfulness trainings, and, in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh's lineage, was bestowed with the name Radiant Forest of the Heart :) I think it is a good name... forests are lovely, dark and fathomless, lit inside by wild, magical creatures  - I can work well with such a name! Pure Ocean Heart or Perfect Serenity might have been slightly harder to live up to!!

Catching the Flower

The flower wants
to be seen
for a while


Because the flower
knows
she will die. 


I wrote these lines while sitting with Thay Thich Nhat Hanh, and wishing for his eyes to fall on me, and acknowledge my presence. All things are impermanent but occasionally, when a dream is coming true, you want it to be perfect. And it was - twice I sat in the front row during the dharma talks, and Thay, who speaks softly, asked us to come closer, sit closer. We obliged with great alacrity! I could not believe my good fortune. Right beneath the Zen Master's feet! If he had thrown the flower, I would have caught it. Except he wouldn't throw a flower.

I am home now, and everything looks even more beautiful, more vividly clear, after six days of mindfulness energy harnessed by nearly 900 Buddhas-to-be. The young monastics, who are all charming and savvy, joked that they have no Indian nuns as yet. There is a space available for me... What do you think? I wonder what sort of nun I would make. Hopeless, probably. I'd be like Maria in The Sound of Music - always on her knees in confession for something or other!

She climbs a tree
And scrapes a knee
her dress has got a tear;
She waltzes on her way to Mass
and whistles on the stair;
And underneath her wimpole
she has curlers in her hair -

I've even heard her singing in the Abbey!
How do you solve a problem like Shaista-a-a??

COOLING THE FLAMES, CULTIVATING HAPPINESS

For the next week I shall be away on retreat in Nottingham with Thich Nhat Hanh and the monks and nuns of Plum Village. I shall be practising mindfulness, which is best described thusly...


Mindfulness is the energy of being aware and awake to the present moment, aware of what is going on within and around us. It is the continuous practice of touching life deeply in every moment of daily life. We bring our body and mind into harmony while we wash the dishes, drive the car or take our morning shower. Practising mindfulness cultivates understanding, love, compassion and joy. This practice helps us to take care of and transform our suffering in our lives and in our society.


As a creative type, I do find myself soaring to the heights and dashing to despair every now and then, so it will be wonderful to practise the middle way for a while. Meanwhile, at home, the dear parents shall have an equally peaceful time without their tempestuous poet underfoot. I wonder what they will do in my absence... Grin and bear it, rather too well, I suspect :)

REFLECTION ON THE SOURCE

It unnerves me
the face in the glass,
that is sometimes me
and sometimes not.

I am unbalanced
by this perfume,
that is sometimes you
and sometimes not.

The heat
stretches out the thread -
in the rain,
it nestles closer;

All around me
the web glistens,
sometimes real
and sometimes not.

image source: the mag

YOU LITTLE LIGHT

You little light,
You joyful face,
You of the wide uncompromising gaze,
You of the wild encompassing grace,

You have faith.

You heal leaving no scar,
no painful trace.

You little acrobat,
You move so fast,
We can hardly keep pace -

Only watch in awe as you
Morph and shift your shape

In and out of this race
And that place;
Listening only for the sounds
Of love's embrace.

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY my darling nephew Rafael!!! If only I could have been there to blow bubbles, and eat cake, but the real gift is this - all that light and love sails right across the oceans, and keeps me buoyant and afloat. In the wake of your smile, in the palm of your hand,
I remain, your devoted
Aunty Shai

GRINDING PEPPER

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, Magpie Tales

Last night I spent a couple of hours dashing about the Tate Modern with a modern art aficionado. It was all energy and flux, transformative matter and the complex relationship of humankind to the School of Things. The work of Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese conceptual artist, was on display - her retrospective exhibition was a visual kaleidoscope of infinity rooms and thrashing limbs and hallucinations made interactive - the security alarms were constantly sounding because children were unable to resist touching; not just children, an unabashed adult too - no, it wasn't me, not this time, anyway!

I can understand the relevance of found beauty in pieces of wood, metal, Lucio Fontana's single clean slash of a canvas,

Do Ho Suh's red fabric staircase,

Richard Long's circles of pebbles and stones...

and Damien Hirst's butterflies or 'Sympathy in White Major - Absolution II'...

but then, with seconds to spare, as the armed watchmen were descending on us (armed with walkie-talkies), we suddenly came upon Monet. And it was all light and simplicity.

Give me trees and water lilies, I thought, give me the scent of oils and a paintbrush. Give me a garden and give me light. I'll add the stars and moon, later, when it darkens. Breath of Monet aside, the Tate Modern seemed to me to be filled with a kind of emptiness, an alienating distance, made more poignant by the DO NOT TOUCH alarms and signs. How to be touched without touching? It's a mystery. Unless, of course, you break the rules.

FUNDING SHAISTA

The birds they are a twittering, round the birch,

inside of Spring, 

This morning, there were daffodils and daisies,

And hidden things -

And bursting behind the door,

purple lilac softly knocking,

ready dressed to come a calling. 

Through my many long years of illness I have often heard this phrase used to describe me: 'she's out of the woods now' - I always find it a curious phrase, because as Frost said, the woods are 'lovely, dark and deep' and sometimes it is enchanting when you're ill to stay cocooned in the warmth of your frailty. But, like Frost, I too have had promises to keep. Promises to live and love, and be all things spring and light.
For two years now, I have been in the woods about funding for my monoclonal treatments, which have been erratic, and for which I learned how to dance with radio, newspapers and medical journals - but now, ta-dah!! I have received a note from my consultant's secretary confirming 'that Rituximab will be funded for the next two years'. Shall I frame it?

To celebrate, I wander around the grounds of Emmanuel College, illegally feeding the ducks Japanese rice crackers, and befriending one in particular with whom I discuss further promises to keep. The duck warns that he will hold me to my promises - but I don't mind. I shall return and make him proud. For the next two years, at least. At least.

first image prompt from Magpie Tales

The Lake Isle Fellowship

One of the pleasures of poetry is the way a line returns to you, unexpectedly. There you are, a schoolchild, being forced to learn of a poet's strange intent -

'I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean rows will I have there' - why? Why will he have nine bean rows? And why wattles? What were wattles to me? But learn the lines I did. And now, as I curl up on a rainy Sunday, and watch the green grass of home slowly soak up the new March rain, as I wait eagerly for spring to unfurl, I understand Yeats...

'And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.'

Yeats was in London, longing for Lough Gill, like any exile in a home away from home, like any lover separated from their beloved...

'While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.'

I didn't call him consciously to mind, but what Yeats heard all those years ago, echoes now in me as his words resound with each drip-drip dropping of peaceful rain today. Happiness is a funny thing - sometimes it feels just as sudden as unhappiness. And all you can give thanks for is that the path has been trodden before, and with great care, by a fellow poet who understands your dreams.

image by digital artist Walter Smith for dverse

William Butler Yeats by John Singer Sargent, 1908