For Subhadra

Posted in remembrance on her first anniversary...

Monday morning
Divya is presenting at the Morbidity and Mortality conference
And I’m trying to finish the prayer book revisions
Before going to see Subhadra and meeting Thanku for lunch.

Then Thanku calls -
Subhadra had collapsed
911 and hospice were called;
Hospice or the hospital?
Om thriyambakam yajaamahe

I need to drop everything and run
But I’m not showered or ready;
Deepa calls - she will go over to Saline;
She finds Shankar alone at home
After Subhadra has left in an ambulance for the hospital.
Om thriyambakam yajaamahe

Thanku and Rajan go to the hospital
Subhadra is alert and signs her own papers
They find her a room - 1115 in the new tower;
Deepa and I start making kanji for Subhdra
As we wait for Geeta to get here.
Om thriyambakam yajaamahe

Monday afternoon
Shankar and Raj are at Subhadra’s bedside
As is Lakshmi – Subhadra’s star student and physician
Subhadra is comfortable and resting.
Om thriyambakam yajaamahe

Deepa takes Shankar for a long lunch
Geeta talks to Subhadra and I keep her hands warm
Prasanna Vijay Revathi Omana spend time with her
Subhadra has her eyes shut but can hear us.
Om thriyambakam yajaamahe

Monday evening
Subhadra left us.
She waited to see Nanu and died peacefully with no pain.
Vijaya and Swamy drove all day but could not get here in time.
Thanku and Geeta got flowers and some prayer books
We gathered in her room -
Thanku Geeta Raji Prasanna Shanti Omana Indira Deepa Raji Anitha Lakshmi and our husbands
We recited three prayers:
A selection from the Bhagwad Geeta, Ayigiri Nandini - Subhadra’s favourite - and

Om thriyambakam yajaamahe sugandhim pushti vardhanam, urvaarukamiva bandhanaath mrithyormuksheeya maammrithaath

We worship Lord Shiva, the three-eyed one, the one who is the master of all senses and qualities and the one who is the sustainer of all growth. May he release us from the bondage of death as a ripened cucumber is released from its stalk and may he grant us immortality.

It is so final, said Deepa, as we said our last goodbye and left her room.

On Grazing and Dry Skin

My great grandmother Chachi used to sit on the low wall
Of the open verandah on the north side of the family home
And had farm help to successfully chase stray cows from grazing in her yard;
The cows were confused – they knew nothing about our boundaries.
She was in her eighties and often used a knife to scratch her drying back.

Now in my fifties I sit on the window seat
Of my well lit and insulated home among the trees
And try my hardest to chase the deer that stray in to graze in my yard;
The deer just stand and stare at me and wonder what I’m doing in their woods.
I find myself using a hairbrush occasionally to scratch my drying back.

Untitled

Another bird dies today
Because of our house among the trees
The house among the trees with glass windows
The glass windows that let in the clear blue sky on a cold day
The blue sky that gets reflected so clearly to the little bird
The little dull brown bird with yellow wings and an orange spot on her head
The little brown bird that lay hidden in the fallen leaves when I went out to look for her
After I had heard the bump and seen something fall.

I held the fallen body
Lifeless and limp
In the bowl of my palms
And deeply, deeply, apologized
Before closing the blinds on that window.

The Reading

I had noticed the entry in the September Observer
And marked the separated parts with two half circles
To possibly check out on Tuesday the twentythird.

But at the end of the day, after seeing my friend off at the bus stop,
I came home at six and thought of all the reasons why
I shouldn’t go back into town for a poetry reading.

The gas price for one; I had a ton of Thrift Shop paperwork to do;
The SPARSH conference call was at eight thirty and I wasn’t ready;
There were emails to reply to and thank you cards to write…

Then I bribed myself: Maybe if you can finish the paperwork
And print the stuff for the meeting, maybe then you can go.
I said OK and started working. I went to check something online.

That did it. I fell into the Shaman Drum page and saw the blurb again.
It was six forty five now and a little late if I wanted to be seated before the start of the reading
But my inherited impulse gene took over and I dropped everything to drive off to State Street.

Not even four hours had lapsed since I had told my friend
About the need to really pick and choose the things you did in this town
Because there were so many of them. Else they would drain you of your time and money.

Was this an event that I needed to be at? Yes. Absolutely.
Just like flute performances a couple of years ago and linguistics classes before that.
Poetry – especially by an ex-engineer-now-stay-at-home-Brighton-mom was irresistible.

I figured I’d sneak into the back of the room and leave a little early if I needed to.
Except that when I got to the store, all the seats in the back were taken; I had also forgotten my watch.
I walked to the front row and sat right next to her while she was being introduced.

When Christine Rhein started to read from her award winning first book Wild Flight
She exuded a quiet confidence and expressed herself with subdued emotion.
I noticed she was a little nervous when she turned the pages – her fingers gave her away.

The end of the hour came all too quick. I was glad now that I had to sit in the front of the room –
I could get in the front of the line to get my book signed. Which I did. Right behind Larry Goldstein.
As I spelled my name, Christine looked up and asked, Are you a writer?

I fumbled for the right words and finally blurted that I hadn’t come out of the closet yet.
She wrote, neatly, With best wishes for your writing, and asked me to stay in touch.
I paid for my book and walked to the parking lot on air.

And to think that I almost didn’t make it to The Reading!

Words

The word is not the thing.

Yet butterfly and dragonfly
When broken down and analyzed
Do not exactly conjure up
The beauty that they represent.

Delilah

Delilah died this June.
So Tony told me when I ran into him at the end of my walk yesterday.

We were not in town then. In fact we’ve been gone a lot this year
And the first time we’ve had a chance to use our deck has been in August.
When I didn’t see her for a whole two weeks
I contemplated visiting the Andersons just to let Delilah know that we were back.

Because though Delilah was Tony and Beth Anderson’s cat,
She was a hunter
And she spent half her summer on our deck anticipating her next move.

I think she also liked us.
And gave us no choice but to adore her.

She would show up at the sliding glass door – the big time waster –
And insist that we go out and pet her.

Of course, she had her dance – she’d move away and come back for more as only a cat can.
She would talk to us in her loud purrs and gentle meows
Looking straight into our eyes with her own beautiful green ones.
After catching up on all the news she would relax in the sunlight, sometimes cleaning herself for minutes on end.

Then she’d take her perch up on the railing of the deck
And wait, and wait, and wait…
Every fall, like around the end of October, I’d get this pang that I would have to wait till spring to see her.
And every spring I’d wait in longing for that first visit from Delilah.
Just like I did this spring.
But now she is gone and I’m left with my memories and longing.

I Want Them All

I love looking at jewelry but could do without most of it.
Same with clothes – I check out clothing stores but often hold back if they cost more than some arbitrary limit I set.
I live in a big house but have lived in smaller ones and can do so again.

Not that there aren’t things I do like to own –
Books, for instance, or photographs or photo related items or stationery or books about making stuff…

And then there are the spring flowers:
Yellow mounds of forsythia, red tulips, violet ground covers, pale pink crabapple trees in full bloom, white dogwood, orange daffodils, purple redbud bursting from every twig, more tulips in exotic shapes and shades, crab apples in deep pink or white, huge magnolia blossoms, bright pink creeping phlox, patches of yellow daffodils, bunches of fragrant lilacs, rare trillium in the woods, striking pink dogwood, dandelions that makes the fresh green grass glow in patterns of yellow….
I WANT THEM ALL!

Except for the dandelions and maybe a daffodil or two
I know I cannot have them all.
I also know the pitfalls of possession.

Yet, when it is spring,
I drive around town
And take in the flowers
With a longing that hurts
From my gut to my skin.

The Face-Off

We saw each other -
As she stood at the top of the stairs
With her ears flopping in the sea breeze
And I on my way up the stairs with my washed clothes;

We both stopped in our tracks and looked
Straight at each others’ eyes for a while
Trying to decipher each other's thoughts;

Snoopy and I
Two women with arthritis and brown skin
Dachshund and Human.

Asian Traffic Rules

You creep
They honk
They speed;

You creep
They honk
They swerve;

One stops
Others stop
You go.