Before we had things
To put in our house
They danced in the empty spaces.
And sometimes when we sing
Of all we have lost
The night flows past in their voices.
How many times I’ve laid them down
My weapons and my defences
Only to find them forged anew
And alight in my daughters’ faces.
Author: Giti
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Warriors II
Sticks and stones, they said,
Will break our bones, and tied
Me to their armoured
Jeep. And I weep
For them, blinded
Without pellets.
For Audur, In Her New Home
A new house is always
A lovers’ dream. A consummation
Of pictures and walls, a yearning
Of spaces for filling. The many ways
In which a corner can touch
A small table, a tall vase; of
Such missed meetings as brass
Candlesticks too awkward to place
Near settees that need the light.
Such may also be the delight
Of warm floors and stockinged feet
Of open doors and a happiness to meet
Those who drink wine at your table
So that when you talk late into the night
And lights come on outside to kiss the sable
Your home is that moment when eye meets eye
And the crowded world settles down with a sigh.
Not A Poem Too Soon
Shall I write tomorrow’s poem
Today? Steal a moment
From today’s beleaguered few
To consider the possibilities
Weigh outcomes anew?
Or should I see today’s words through?
I could wait for tomorrow’s beauty
To reveal itself slowly, as it is meant
To do. Savour the last lights of the day
Wonder where the hours went.
The moon ponders its waning glow
Seeking a handful of syllables to throw
Into the verses that this day has sent.
Why I’ll Never Be Famous
Last night I heard ten writers read
From books they had written themselves.
Corpses and divorcees, cuisines with cheese
Sashayed forth from their shelves.
Cultured and hushed, sepulchral and tart
The vocal version of elbow grease
Saw them through from finish to start
Wanting, but trying not to appear too eager to,
Please. And I, with my tonic and gin,
Applauded lustily, every and each,
Thankful it wasn’t me making the speech
That would trot my fledgling children out
To be inspected, prodded, turned about,
My tales spun out, made to spin
Knowing I would lose if they didn’t win.
Amaltas II
I wish that I could be
The heat that saps a thousand blooms;
The powdered earth that breathes
The sun into its lungs.
I wish my days would be
As quick to ignite into fire
As sudden as gold that feeds
This city’s veins and fields.
I wish every summer’s thirst
Meets that moment when first
The bright chandeliers drop their grace
On my grateful face.
One Day…
…soon after summer was almost gone,
I saw what it had done to an old photograph.
The blues had become maroons, the reds
Bled into dark greens. Faces paled into half
Bleached shades of forgotten friends.
My anger emerged in livid shades of bile.
I took down all my pictures and made a face-down
Pile. We turned our faces determinedly away
From this light that had turned our nights to day
How wickedly seduced into believing
That the winter darkness and our sadness had anything
To do with each other. Now another
Spring woos me. Shows me how the past year
Framed me. Asks me to turn my face around
Think about putting protective film, this year,
On the windows that bring the sun in.
Grow a thicker skin.
The blues had become maroons, the reds
Bled into dark greens. Faces paled into half
Bleached shades of forgotten friends.
My anger emerged in livid shades of bile.
I took down all my pictures and made a face-down
Pile. We turned our faces determinedly away
From this light that had turned our nights to day
How wickedly seduced into believing
That the winter darkness and our sadness had anything
To do with each other. Now another
Spring woos me. Shows me how the past year
Framed me. Asks me to turn my face around
Think about putting protective film, this year,
On the windows that bring the sun in.
Grow a thicker skin.
For Yvonne
“Where on earth are you from?!” I rather rudely asked
The first time that we met. “I’m the people they found
When they came looking for you,” she very tartly said.
Even then we knew, I think, that since the world was round
There’d never be a time when we wouldn’t be
In one another’s head.
When explorers went exploring, looking for worlds to own
Indian Americans and American Indians didn’t yet abound.
They gave their ships women’s names, these hungry men
Whose lust for gold would run those ships aground. But when
Explorers would come as women, foreign to every shore
Lusting after knowledge, home cooked food, and more;
Sisterhood in corridors, soups that made you thin,
Thermal socks and borrowed fathers, that brought
You home again; this love that made us fighters,
Saw us through misery and all-nighters, once again
Makes voyagers of our souls. And every now and then
We sail through oceans fraught, dropping anchor when
We meet, more rarely than we ought.
When Falling Out Of Skies: An Easter Observation
When falling out of skies
It’s best to be a mountain.
Your descent to earth a flow
Of rivers in reverse. A settling
Of stone on soil, a closing
Of spaces between. No fountain
Of might or mercy, but sighs
Etched into the rock face.
A rising of Grace.
On First Hearing Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto in G min
(Concerto)
Fear and longing hold each other by the waist
More often than we know. The one
Arching into arabesques of silent pain
The other frozen between places, stunned
By falling beauty.
Like tears of rage
That descend in hurtful rain
On the dark green trees of home.
Rage and yearning follow each other through lanes
More narrow than feet can know. The two
At war like nomadic travelers, bound
To their lands, torn by their trails. Who
Is the warrior, who lost, what is found
When a hard won serenity wanes
With every fall of the sun, every sound
Of still water cracking under the strain.
Giti Chandra 