Thirtha 11
The bus conductor thunders, “Haaji Ali,”
above the muezzin’s pitch, above cymbals clashing
around the corner by the jasmine vendors.
I wait among garish women on a ribbon of road at the head of the bay,
where double-decker buses hurtle into town, the dome
rising behind me, white and gleaming at low tide.
Crows and gulls wing about, searching.
On the floor of the bay, a path moves steadily to Allah’s heart.
I think of Muhammad describing to Meccans
the light he had seen above the seventh tier of the mountain—
it was bright, you know, like…
but couldn’t find metaphors to paint the image that stunned him.
The singing on the cliff mingles with the muezzin’s prayer.
Both loud, their long syllables wind down the water’s edge,
rise among the birds, dip low, lift, and circle mosque and temple.
Nudged from one random thought to another, I wait for the right bus.
“Do you know if 47 comes here? It’s new,” asks a woman in green.
I shrug, ‘I’m new.”
One stops; a call pierces the heat, “Mahalakshmi”:
Different names for the same stop,
different names for God.
(from Thirtha (Yuganta Press, 2002))
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Art By the Way
Imagine if the dye had to be made,
leaves and flowers plucked, mixed
with water and stirred over a hot stove
cooled under the moon, the right branch
found and sharpened to dip into the potion,
a piece of parchment, dry enough
but not too dry, has to be smoothed
before the pen can be lifted
from the decoction, wet enough
but not drippy, so the words form in neat,
thick chunks as the hours pass slowly,
so at day’s end if four lines are written
it’s a feat, especially if dishes have to be washed,
laundry hung out to dry, kids fed, and
a hundred pieces of family life picked up:
it must have been the woman with magic
who put a god on watch to brush a few strokes
on leaves, the pen’s spout, her life, so imagine
the women who couldn’t manage it all,
let the dye coagulate, the pen stick to the bowl,
the parchment vanish into yellow dust.
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The Long Shadow of Evil
The hall spins, bride, groom, flowers, guests, husband. Then routine happens.
Do I have all the ingredients for the feast?
A bird bangs itself against glass and falls. That’s how I feel when he slaps my face.
Spirit, better not stand me up, I yell
silently. This is how surprise springs and settles,
wordless bitterness in my throat,
his causeless rage twisting him ugly.
I know the difference between sinking dark and womb dark: My marriage is dung,
I choke, marriage is dung dung dung. Singers croon s ita kal yanam vaibogame
Rama kal yanam vaibogame
as bride and groom walk around the fire.
Roses on the nuptial bed, stitched into garlands, roses perfuming waters anointing the wedded pair.
I place my hands on my truth-telling heart
thud-thud thud-thud, I close my eyes, the hall spins.
His rage, my humiliation, then the pretense,
laughter and gossip, the rippling of everafter,
symbols of fertility mocking me: twin hills of lentils, clay pots filled with new sprouts, babies
placed on the bride’s silken lap, the circle of fire redrawing her womb.
My husband’s father and his father’s father, their anger, a fiery chain, will dog my sons.
How will they pick their paths through evil sown by ghosts?
My dead mother calls, Sitala, tune up th e s tring s ,
before your mind dulls and bells drag you t o duties .
His words, I’ll-die-and-only-then-
you-will-regret, I tune out.
Mother visits in dreams, Sing your h eart out,
you’re w e dde d t o w ords till your t ongue is ash .
(Published in The Singer of Alleppey, (Plain View Press,2018)).
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Impact
When the bullet meets flesh
the moment the moment is gone
then the searing pain then gone gone
confetti of flesh then the after the hereafter
no looking back or forward
not like the impact of a kiss
when lips meet and draw each other’s breath
as if the essence of the other is needed to make you live
so you draw the other deep into you
and in the next moment of that joining
you savor the taste of the lover
remember the utter leaving of your body.
(Published in South Asian Popular Culture, Routledge, 2020.)
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The Flood
Dawn sees a string of women
in the city waiting to board
the bus. Voices ripple in the
dark, a roll call of names,
and soon the bus rides the descending
fog, following a necklace of red
lights weaving into the Capital.
Women hold up banners,
call out, call out, call
out the king and his henchmen.
Spilling into avenues, they walk colorful
in coats, hats and scarves, chanting,
bursting into song. Yes, we shall overcome.
sister, shine this little light of mine,
yours and mine, let it shine.
Spirits take wing as words burst from lips
of women and men who work
brutal hours to lift the weak
and now lift sagging spirits.
Courage, sisters, and the women
cry back courage and power,
heat gathering in layers, the air warm with
joined wills, a giant tide gradually
curling into the perimeters.
(Published in Manhattan Review, 2018).
Bio
Pramila Venkateswaran, poet laureate of Suffolk County, Long Island (2013-15) and co-director of Matwaala: South Asian Diaspora Poetry Festival, is the author of Thirtha (Yuganta Press, 2002) Behind Dark Waters (Plain View Press, 2008), Draw Me Inmost (Stockport Flats, 2009), Trace (Finishing Line Press, 2011), Thirteen Days to Let Go (Aldrich Press, 2015), Slow Ripening (Local Gems, 2016), and The Singer of Alleppey (Shanti Arts, 2018). She has performed the poetry internationally, including at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival and the Festival Internacional De Poesia De Granada. An award winning poet, she teaches English and Women’s Studies at Nassau Community College, New York. Author of numerous essays on poetics as well as creative non-fiction, she is also the 2011 Walt Whitman Birthplace Association Long Island Poet of the Year. She leads writing workshops for breast cancer patients in their healing journey. She is a founding member of Women Included, a transnational feminist association and the current Vice President of NOW Mid-Suffolk, Long Island
