A Lament and A Psalm of Praise --QM

Taken on 2.10.13 by

Ananth Narayan S

Wind Chimes at Auroville

Under the instruction of Mary Oliver I've taken out a real pencil and paper several times this past week to see if some Notable Words will emerge on my notebook. I'm not much of a journaler; I like to write to an audience larger than one. Every time I wrote, however, (the dentist office, the minutes between brushed teeth and lights out, a stolen moment before work) only raw, teary words came out, the kind that might be better kept in the dark of a drawer, hidden in a diary. 
I'm going to bring one entry to the light of this blinking computer screen, with the condition that you also read the lighter notes of the second one. My life isn't all heaviness.


 A Lament: Wind-chimes

Outside my mother's house,
like tuneful broken glass,
they tinkle.
The day is cold, the house empty.
The cat meows at the closed door,
the wind pulls at my thin brocaded coat and
I can hardly hear their cheery notes.

The music in my life has been quiet this year,
minor keys.
The wind has shook out each note.
I want to play a different song,
and hear a fiddler's lilting song-and-dance.

But my favorite songs are never ditties,
twitching feet.
I like the harmonies 
that swell and 
Fall.

This season of loss, this confusing year--
Is only the wind
       the bass notes
and soon my song will richer, fuller ring.

My Children

 A Psalm of Praise: Blankets over a Table

The scraps of Sunday's dinner lie strewn over my counters--
The mess of rest.

Strainers
  Beans drying on Plates 
   White-rimed Spaghetti Pot 
      Pungent Garlic Press 
       Syrupy Peach Juice
    
 But the table is cleared,
       cleaned,
            wiped for a ROOK game, already won.
Now the little people of this house have confiscated the space.
Blankets thrown over and under,
A pillow for a secret book
a whispered reading.
The are surprised when I 'find' them, 
When I try to enter their world, I knock my head, adult-like,
on the underbelly of the table.

I'm a clumsy child, 
almost an onlooker,
but not too old to experience 
Thanksgiving at the Table.