Leave-Taking

                                

It's on its last legs, the monsoon.  A nip in the air's found its way in already.  And soon, very soon, these angry skies and rain and fog will give way to warm sunshine and clear blue skies.  The cold will close in on us by late afternoon and we'll snuggle into thick socks and woollies, and warm icy hands over heated coals. Mornings will waken us to crisp, cloudless sights that we can see forever and beyond through.

But I'll miss the sounds of the rainy season. The whiplash crackle of lightning, the boom of  thunder, the rain pouring down in torrents. Frightening but oddly comforting. And the sights of the wet season. The brightly coloured umbrellas, people moving about in blurred outlines outside wet car windows, the little Pol Pot skulls clustered on the glass, the world fogged over and greyed out. Uniquely beautiful.

Au revoir. When it leaves, I shall pick up my phone and earphones and comfort myself to sleep with sounds of falling rain.

Against the Cosmos

I came across this picture on Instagram this morning, taken by a young man from Mexico - a very young man because he just graduated from high school a few weeks ago and says he's off to college soon. Now there are pictures and there are pictures. Some are flawless and perfect but leave you cold. Then some speak to you on a deeper level, making an instant connection that you can't quite put a finger to. This one awoke poetry in me.

On the edge of a world

I don't always understand,

I stand, a small presence, 

because I must

because I am

because in this infinite world

it couldn't have been a mistake

that I am.

My presence may be blurred 

in a world 

I don't always understand.

But I am. 

Here's to you, gess8

The Fog

And it comes again

this fog

stealing in silently 

clouding over in slow degrees

all that was crystal clear,

like the fog in my mind does

sometimes.

Of Dusk and Swings

And if light shall fade 

and fall to black...

There's probably some psychology term for it but a certain memory comes to mind every time I watch dusk fall - which isn't every day with all the things happening at the end of the day that prevent you from just sitting back and watching the world changing outside. Also I happen to live on the eastern side of town which means I get to watch sunrises but sunsets never. 

But I digress. Dusk somehow always brings back to mind a particular image. A little girl sitting on a swing, all on her own while nature shifts and changes colours all around her.  I was about 9 or 10, recently sent off to a boarding school (albeit with my two sisters) after years of living with my grandparents. The school had two sections separated from each other by a large, grassy field with a narrow cobbled pathway connecting the two sections. One section housed the classrooms, and the other was the main, rambling, Assam type building with dormitories for the boarders and a closed off section housing the chapel and nuns.

The swings were in the classroom section and were always in great demand during lunch breaks and before classes. I never even dreamed of trying to get a turn at those times. Instead, sometimes in the evenings when the pushy day scholars had gone home and the hostel girls were all busy doing something or the other, I would wend my way alone down the cobbled path and have the swings all to myself. There were two of them - one was high and scary and the big girls loved to ride it, giggling and screaming. The other one was children's size, I guess. I would sit on the wooden seat and  swing to my heart's content. Everything would be peaceful and quiet except for a few crickets singing in the trees and hedges. I would listen to the iron hinges creak as dusk fell around me. The world would grow soft and mellow,  enveloped in swift changing hues of crimson, pink, orange and purple and I would think of how the older girls always talked about how homesick they felt at sundown. Maybe I was too young to feel homesick, or maybe since I had never really lived with my parents since childhood I didn't feel that way. But I did sense something sad and lingering in the air around me. And then I would remember the classrooms behind me were supposed to be haunted so I would get up and make my way back to the dorms before it got too dark.

I've come a long way, baby!

Came across this quote just a couple of days before my birthday the other day and it didn't need much thought. Yes, a resounding YES, no question about it. In fact, I'm wondering if anyone would even reply a no to this. Surely we've all come a long, long way from the girl or boy we were yesterday. The self-assurance, the confidence, the wisdom accumulated from experience - some of it at harsh/painful/humiliating expenses.

On the flip side, I suppose there probably are still be a few areas that could do with some adjustment for desired results. A little tweaking here, a little tweaking there. But on the whole, yes, the girl I was yesterday would be more than proud to be the woman I am today.
*doffs cap*

Of Shadows Dark and Deep and a Truth Uncovered

A cold, wet, dreary evening. Puts me in the mood for this poem whose title or lines I couldn't recollect apart from "and if tonight." That was enough for good old google though. Though I've studied and taught Lawrence for years, it was only last year or so that I got to know this poem which became an immediate favourite. Not as well known as his other works, probably because this is such an intensely personal poem - not something you teach in a classroom but something you treasure deeply especially if you're feeling the weight of passing seasons. From a quick research online, I found this beautiful piece was written just before his death from tuberculosis in 1930. It is so movingly heavy with a sense of peace and a rich, deep faith in God. And to think all my literature books say Lawrence had always been something of an agnostic. 

Shadows by DH Lawrence

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.

And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and words
then I shall know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together now the moon’s in shadow.

And if, as autumn deepens and darkens
I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms
and trouble and dissolution and distress
and then the softness of deep shadows folding,
folding around my soul and spirit, around my lips
so sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song
singing darker than the nightingale, on, on to the solstice
and the silence of short days, the silence of the year, the shadow,
then I shall know that my life is moving still
with the dark earth, and drenched
with the deep oblivion of earth’s lapse and renewal.

And if, in the changing phases of man’s life
I fall in sickness and in misery
my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead
and strength is gone, and my life
is only the leavings of a life:

and still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches of renewal
odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers
such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me

then I must know that still
I am in the hands of the unknown God,
he is breaking me down to his own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.

Against the Wind

When the seasons turn and the sticky heat gives way to a nip in the air, and that cool nip dips a notch with autumn rains, my thoughts always go back several years in time when I was young and life was sweet and simple. Happiness then was sitting in a cosy hostel room, warmed by a heater, and Bob Seger singing about running against the wind while horses clip clopped across an icy river...

We were young and strong 
but we were running against the wind.

Of a Cold Day in October and Smileys for Dinner

Early October,
a bleak, wet Sunday evening
deep frying smileys for dinner
the kids in the bylane outside the house
playing marbles are gone.
They're there every day
come daylight and shine,
the little ones to the bigger ones,
even the young father with
the five month old child.
On my phone atop the fridge
Springsteen plays
his harmonica and sings
of a meanness in this world.
The french fries sizzle in the pan
browning nicely,
the smiles held in by the hot oil -
fixed, fake, plastic.
I think to myself that's not how life works,
for into every life a little rain
must fall on and off
and the smiles don't stay in place
all the time.