Author: Madhuri

Writer - Children's Fiction & Ghost Writer

When the gates were taken out

I was waiting to go home at 8 am,

stepping aimlessly over

the left-over dirt and stones  

in the courtyard that was raised because  

the inner lanes had to be raised because 

the municipal roads had been raised—  

it was the busyness of a city

keeping itself in shape,

leaving me breathless, 

with my eyes to the ground,

until— 

the gates were taken out

to be raised,

opening a tiny window

in which I hesitate 

before stepping out into the lane

like an inmate tasting her first lick

of forgotten freedom, as if  

the gates had kept me locked in

all this while, as if  

I didn’t belong

on the open Earth outside,

any time  I pleased,

for no reason at all but that I was alive 

the frangipani flowers lay

thick and white on the ground

with their sunny hearts open, 

I imagine them floating gracefully

off the tree,  which had let them go

under a silent half-moon,  

which lingers even now

above lazy splashes of white,

a brilliant sun shining above us all  

in an endless blue sky,

all of them whispering— 

you are in this soft beauty. 

what do I know about time

what do I know

about time but that

she’s a live wire

running through

all the lives that ever live

their voices

a low hum within.

I sat still one day.

“listen to yourself,”

she whispered

“listen deep”

“your voice 

isn’t wholly yours

it is the hum

of those around

and beyond

it is what you pull

out of yourself

in response

their harshness

—your anger

their kindness

—your love

it is

what you pass on.

be still, love,”

she whispers,

“be still.”

Frangipani calm

Does the frangipani 

remain calm—

safe in the knowledge

she won’t absorb the dust 

lain on her ivory self?

Does she know in her brief life

—the wind will blow away  

the motes it had blown in? 

Does she know already  

—she need only dance

with the raindrop

before she rises

free of the dust?

Does she have the wisdom 

to let the mote

rest light on her,

not weigh her down? 

Is that why

the frangipani can turn

her golden heart inside out

to the skies and the world? 

or does her calm arrive softly

as she resolves

—that not a wink of her week’s life 

she must waste wallowing in the motes? 

—that so long as she doesn’t take them in, 

they do not become hers? 

—that so long as she doesn’t make them hers, 

they can’t weigh her down?

Really, is there a difference  

between knowing and resolving? 

as the frangipani drops 

quiet as she arrives,

unfurling her heart.

Travels at the witching hour

Last night, I woke up at one am

and found myself

on my brand new bed

six hundred miles away.

After laying a single night

ten months ago

upon the bracing care

of its red-brown teak,

I had drawn

the dark peach curtains,

leaving behind

its shadowed form

in the darkened room.

It stood glowing now

under the gaze

of a luminous moon

in a roofless sky,

the night was not a night

it was a moon day,

and here is a story

from the silent travels

of my waiting soul

released at night

from the mind’s blinding hold

along highways

uncharted for my slumbering self,

returning with glowing tendrils

that turned to smoke

in the fist of the grasping mind.

At the start

of the witching hour,

the gates of the mind slid open,

the soul sailed out.

In grace, I woke this night

upon what I thought

was my bed

until I saw the gliding moon.

The hum of the ocean

made itself present,

the teak bed,

a wisp of the mind,

tendrils leading

from this wishful cot

to the ocean’s bed

where I lay with my eyes open wide.

The full soft moon

glided along the surface

easing into a thousand moons

tumbling purposefully within tenuous reach

slipping back into the one above

bathing the waters forever

in its soft gaze.

I hugged

a full soft moon

one of the thousand moons,

it laughed

with crinkled eyes,

sharing its joy,

tendrils of the moon day

seeped into my lightening marrow

lifting me

clean off the ocean’s dark bed.

Come now, give me a growl

“Beasts only lurk

in the dark woods beyond locked doors,”

so went the family tale.

When they grew into

little girls, the sisters came to know, some family tales

are just wishful dreams.

They stepped innocent

to the front, turning into tethered bait for the beast

lurking indoors.

Poisoned fangs

sinking deep, punctured muscle and wounded souls.

Under the genial surface

the sisters to this day

gasp, holding poison in tortured silence,

drawing agonized breaths

under roaring pain.

The skulking beast prances free, spilling poison

over silenced alarms.

One little girl

took her turn as her sisters did, joining ranks

with the rolling waves,

common pawns ordered

to the death march by blinded monarchs suppressing mutiny

until she stepped

out of the ranks

into the dark woods where the tigress beckoned

inviting her to tea.

“I know that thing,”

she said after the girl took her seat. “What thing,” said the girl

alert to the tigress’ disapproval.

“That story you tell yourself,”

the tigress twitched her whiskers, pouring tea into earthen cups,

“of bygones and dirty laundry.

There are no bygones

when you’re dealing with the beast. There’s no laundry dirty of yours.

It’s knotted poison

you nurse in tight embrace.

Notionally speaking, it’s time you dropped that where it belongs

in the beast’s bloody hamper.

Your silence is poisoned bargain

you never made. Come now, girl, give me a good growl, it’s the start of a

roar when the beast is near.”

Texture of absent love

How does a child feel

the texture of absent love but as a passage

void of susurrus leaves and the gentle graze of skin on skin.

He makes a choice

not of a dying forest tree nor flattened curve in pallid glory

spreading vermin to all in touch, but to brace himself on distant shores.

The child stands shivering

a darkened log sunk in the shallow sands facing

the sparkling sea, shouldering the pier open to the chill of the void.

A little girl skips along

leaping off the pier in a gleeful shriek, his breath hitches

at outstretched arms catching hold, raising her to the blue sky.

A dark splinter tears away

bleeding black, suppressed void springing

in a leak, splintering pain opening his eyes to the emerald sea.

A waiting storm breaks, shifting the mooring sands,

the child is thrown out to sea, looking over his right shoulder,

but it was a dark unrevealing night of the secrets that lay beyond.

Days and nights pass

in whipping blades and icy wetness until he wakes

one day to a blue sky. A faint hum susurrates, calling the trembling child.

Letting go the surface light

he slips underneath parting the blue waters, haunted eyes

drawn to a whale suspended asleep amid the sweeping currents.

Slanting rays gleam magical.

A curious eye opens. The child shrinks

under its open gaze, choked desire drawing him to the wakening whale.

Her hum reverberates

riffling through the trembling boy, splinters dislodge

drawing darkened trails. The whale draws close through the rolling sea.

Ashamed, the child breaks away

eyes shut tight waiting in furious heat for the lapping current

in the wake of a parting whale, soon a shadow in the distant gloom.

The whale brushes, a flipper enfolds,

the agony of the caress sends rills of shivers, the child tumbles

breaking from the hum of the whale, then returning in awkward rolls

in the strange dance of letting love swell in the void.

The dream you didn’t dream

All or none.

Just a phrase 

for letting go

the dream you dreamt.

Go for broke.

Just another phrase

for foolish impulse

and sliding hours.

Be at it.

Stopwatch. Each day.

An hour’s void

from the

battering world.

Shush the pounding.

Take your eye

off that horizon.

Hear the whisper.

See the image.

In the void

the daemon beckons

dead centre

within.

Heed the call.

Keep your eye peeled.

There’s no horizon

but the one within.

Losing the whisper,

catching it again,

in the void you meander

to a pulsing strange thing.

It isn’t the dream

you dreamt.

Something else

entirely.

What’s left after

you sliver and scrape

and clear the detritus.

The original thing,

the one

you didn’t dream.

The dream

you’ve dreamt,

a shadow

of this strange joyful thing

cupping your soul.

You go down

on your knees,

forehead touches

the ground

for the grace that lit you

from within.

You see at last.

It wasn’t you

holding the dream.

It was the dream

that held you whole

without rent or seam.

(Poem triggered by “daemon” from Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk Your elusive creative genius.)

I long for…

I long for wide avenues

through kapoks, teaks

and gooseberry trees.

I long for the thrum of roots,

silent life, pulsing heavenward

through flexing, striding feet.

I long for the soft sun behind

spent clouds, slats of dazzling

silver, lighting the fluid earth.

I long for the tickle of raindrops

sliding off bowing leaves, and white

sneakers bathing in orange pools.

I long for the free larks, resting on

slatted orange benches, gazing

with eyes, pools of tender joy.

I long for their cool palms, pressing

on my crown, willing me to raise

my eyes, the horizon beckons.

I long for wide avenues, floating

winds of silent whispers, lone

companions keeping pace.

I long for the call to breathe, full and

deep, for the swing of my arms

and my long bare stride.

Circle of Life in a Shoe Flower

From bud to bloom to closure, in a sort of circle, visible on a single plant, in probably a two-week cycle of life.

A couple of weeks or a few decades, we’re here for a short time.

What matters is what we do within that circle. Have we treated another—any other—as our own.

Shoe flower, courtesy cousin, Sandhya Y.