If this is January

January is the slow, quiet time of year
when we sit back and relax
after the rush of the Christmas season
and bask in the sun, warming our backs
and eating sweet oranges.

Not a time when crime explodes in our faces:
When young men go missing
and their bloated, blackened corpses are found
and skinny young dark men arrested
and charged nine long days later.
When carnage runs wild, free as blood
as crazed men burst into houses
and slash you to death with
a butcher's knife,
when in a family of six,
five coffins are lined up
the next day.
And on the streets and social media,
church-going people bay for
vengeance and retribution
and of taking the law into their hands.

If this is January
slow, quiet January
I dread what summer will bring.

Hello again, January

Chilly mornings
wrapped in fog,
leaves shiver
on thinning trees,
the sad wintry sun
cannot break through
the greyed out landscape.
Inside the house
echoes bounce off white, naked walls
stripped of Christmas trimmings.
Hello again, January,
to you I raise
a gently steaming cup of tea.

The Long and Winding Road That Was

A confession now that 2014 is well and truly in the past. In 1994 my mother had died of cancer, in 2004 my sister had a fall where she broke her spinal cord and became a paraplegic. How apprehensive I was when 2014 arrived, wondering what calamity might be in store. I could hardly bring myself to look at this cover of Our Daily Bread with Alex Soh's beautiful shot of a cyclist travelling down a rugged, winding road between hills and valleys. The curves in the road seemed to me to conceal something frightening. As Christmas time arrived, I breathed easier. The year seemed to be letting itself out quietly. But as news of the QZ8501 came, I thought no, anything could still happen. Eventually it was only this morning that I could bring myself to look at this picture with an easy mind.


To the good Lord who guided me through the long, winding road that was 2014, I am so deeply, deeply grateful.

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*