Like it or not, the goals we strive for are rarely the final solutions we expect.

.

Through the gate

.

Arrive at final goal, sweating,  

panting – exhilarated.

The strived for moment.

 .

Final barrier closed, but unlocked.

Lean all your weight against

its solid resistance.

 .

First glimmer of light breaks

through splinter slim gap,

opening, cracking apart.

 .

Heart leaps with bright first ray,

dancing particles in sunny light

as gate creaks slowly wide.

 .

Delight and relief flood in,

sweet satisfaction as your gaze

falls on new landscape.

 .

But now you see –

there are three paths,

each with forks and bends,

 .

with potholes,

broken cobble stones,

indecipherable signs.

 .

Unexpectedly you face not a single

smooth path but again a blurred

choice and no map.

 .

.

Today it is one year since I posted my first weekly poem!

Thank you to all those who visit the site, and for all your comments and encouragement, both on site and on Facebook. I have posted 60 poems over the year and kept the commitment I made when I started 12 months ago. Meanwhile the number of daily visitors has gone from 18 per day in February 2013 to 150 per day in January 2014. I don’t know how accurate the count is but the trend is clear, and a great source of encouragement when inspiration is lacking. Thank you for that!

And so, the struggle continues.

Welcome to Year 2!

Walking in the city on winter nights is yet another interesting experience Dhaka has to offer. Behind the blaring, hooting traffic hides a different night.

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Pause

.

Red lights behind and north,

a pause between thoughts,

 .

night sounds walk on

while engines hooting  fade away.

 .

In the dark eye

bicycles whoosh past,

weary workers, burdened students

exhale, hold,

inhale, the night shift.

Low voices; stars are there

below street lamps,

reflecting in dark water.

 .

Lights turn green, engines

roar and gears shift.

 .

Night cuts to  

bright, blaring action.

 .

.

On this cold and foggy Dhaka morning, at the beginning of a year which makes no promises of easy solutions or diminishing challenges, I renew my resolution to live life fully and to be the best person I can be,

Possibility

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I’ll live in possibility, where odds are always high,

embrace the opportunities a lively life supplies.

When unfamiliar music starts, I’ll step out on the floor,

not held back by some nameless dread, but ready to explore.

 .

I’ll recognize potential – the spark that wants to glow –

notice seeds in frozen ground that need some warmth to grow.

The apathy that hides a fear of failure can be fought,

we can succeed if we believe without a second thought.

 .

I’ll take responsibility, I’ll not deny or blame –

a misstep is a lesson learned and never cause for shame.

I’ll contribute the best I have; engaging in each task,

the more we give the more we grow; the end is a new start.

 .

I’ll speak out with integrity, I know that words can harm –

my words will build and not tear down, they’ll comfort and they’ll warm.

I’ll cultivate the power of the words that set us free,

in truth, with warmth and clarity, from loving honesty.

 .

My expectations are for good, from life and fate and you –

an optimist still sees the sun when clouds block out the view.

I cultivate a sense of wonder in this world we share,

the path may not be as we plan, but still the path is there.

 .

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In appreciation of January, and with fondest greetings to the members of the ‘Association for the Appreciation of January’ all over the world. (this poem should be read in ‘rap’ tempo.)

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Ode to January

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Let me tell you ‘bout January

First month of the year

When there’s champagne and fireworks

You’ll know that she’s here

That’s January

January

.

Her first day is quite short

‘cause you wake up real late

You chuck out your calendars

And write the wrong date

That’s January

January

.

She likes lots of planning

Sends kids back to school

Kicks out Christmas décor

And sets some new rules

That’s January

January

.

In the North she’s real cool

With snow and grey skies

In the South she’s all hot

With heat waves and flies

That’s January

January

.

Treat her with respect

And a small pinch of fear

If you get her right,

You’ll sure have a good year

That’s January

January

.

.

The parent of adolescents is part of who I am in these years of my life, and it is a weird, wonderful and painful experience, which confuses, puts perspective and humbles. I try to do the best I can but wish there was a more comprehensive user manual.

.

Not understanding a thing

.

For years I’ve read articles about adolescent brains,

focus and index finger meandering through twin studies

of fascinatingly pimply youths.

The surprising findings of physiological programming for all-

night gaming, morning conflicts, agreements made and lost

in reorganizing, rearranging neurons and synapses.

.

My time comes and sharp counsel from the uninitiated grates against

soothingly philosophical reminiscences from survivors,

because everyone knows the answers, but the questions aren’t clear.

Now, I just struggle from crisis to crisis in a heady cocktail of hormones

and philosophy, and self-questioning on paths I hadn’t planned to travel,

where I find myself looking up at my child and not understanding a thing.

.

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Saved this one for Christmas eve’s day, most beloved of days!

A candle flutters

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A candle flutters,

beyond its reflection the wind tosses rain

against our window pane,

mirrored in kaleidoscope memories

of familiar, bright-eyed faces

in tunneled reminiscence of red-green places.

.

A candle flickers

in scents of cinnamon, roasting poultry

in company with crispy, salty

meats, almonds ground and found

in rice and cream mounds

poured red fruity sauce and crystal sounds.

.

A candle trembles

in breath of chatting, laughing voices loose

in melodic arrangement chasing caroled tones

of holy, silent night, all is bright

in candle quivering light

and merry Christmas.

.

.

.

This week’s poem must speak for itself, as I cannot.

Flu

 .

Nasty flu,

hammers in my head.

She scratches at my throat

and throbs in my ears.

Dizzying my thoughts with

threats of ills to come.

.

Settles painlessly in my larynx.

Voice box filled with unfamiliar speechlessness.

A reminder perhaps

of too many oral barbs.

 .

Laryngitis;

a prompt to speak kinder.

.

 .

 .

While trying to mediate this morning a poem came to me. I am trying to find stillness today, in a country where all is in a mess of politics and fearful anticipation, in a month where my community breaks up and goes to other lives in other places, not knowing what we will return to, at a stage in my life where I am wondering in an unfamiliar empty nest. I realize I am living with the sense that everything is waiting for something to happen, some epic change. But when I really examine the feeling I realize the moment is not waiting; instead every moment is monumental in its own reality.

.

This moment

 .

Feels like I’m standing here, waiting,

paused on trembling lip in blank postponement.

Monochrome shadows after action,

dim backward echo

of an approaching future.

Apprehension, suspension.

 .

Feels like waiting,

but it’s not.

 .

Irresistible forces of time, tugged by gravity,

treacherous reverberations of The Big Bang

hurtling through infinite space,

clinging to dazzling sun,

neutralizing velocity of the cautious moon.

Flinging, spinning.

 .

Feels like waiting

but it’s not.

 .

Standing on an earth suspended on fluid lava

that seeks for volcanic cracks,

while sun beats desert anvils,

winds howl over vacuums.

Tectonic rising of rock solid blistering, fracturing,

eroding, exploding.

 .

Feels like waiting,

but its not.  

 .

Body voiceless, motionless, still,

while metabolism roars in pulsing organs.

Bacteria ferment, digestion rumbles.

Respirations panting, excretion expels,

 osmosis, absorption.

Cells expire, synapses fire.

 .

Feels like waiting

but its not.

 .

 .

.

This week for I am sharing a short story rather than a poem, but I hope you will find the story has a touch of poetry.

The old lady in my dream

I dreamt of an old lady. It was a warm and happy dream. She was very old, maybe she was dying, but if so, she was ready. She was ready for whatever was to come and she was happy.

She was lying down and I stood at the head of the bed she lay on, so that I saw her face from above and upside down. 

“What is your name?” I asked, and she answered with my own. I laughed with delight. Never have a met anyone with the same name as me. She smiled a smile of absolute contentment and I moved to take her hand, and hold it, light and fragile, in my much bigger hand.  

“I have been looking for you,” she gave a contented sigh, studying my face, “looking for you all my life.” I felt tears in my eyes, and I knew it was true. I knew that she was happy just because I was there, just as I was absolutely content in that place, in that time, in her company.

I woke with a smile on my lips and the dream still fresh and clear. I wanted to hold onto the feeling and tried to tie down the details, and then I started wondering where it came from. There are not so many old ladies in my life. Who or what did the lady in my dream represent?

 My name came from my great-grand mother. A mythical figure, who married beneath her to save her reputation  and give her unborn child a father and a family, a woman who held up her head and raised the standing of her family through hard work and the ability to accept and adapt.

“My grandmother was a heavy woman with a will of steel and no complaints although life was not always kind to her,” my own mother told me long ago.  In my imagination, supported by a few black and white photographs, my name-sake was a dark woman, with thick, dark grey hair, even in old age. Not the white-haired, light-spirited woman of my dream.

Because I grew up far from my home country I did not know either of my grandmothers well. Both were small, unlike the large, loud men who dominated that generation of my family and very unlike the large, loud women who demand their place in my own generation. My mother’s mother took up as little space as possible and lived with cross-word puzzles, ladies magazines, knitting and television in a small apartment. A small life in a small room with windows looking out only at the view of her daughters lives.

 My father’s mother was small and hard, and pecked angrily at my charming, clever grandfather, who was also her cousin. She could be cruel to her daughter, but was a loving mother to her sons and a generous grandmother.  She had long hair dyed brown until she was very old, always worn in a respectable bun, low on the back of her head. She made black-current jam to die for, but I do not think she would visit me in my dreams.

My mother and aunts are growing old, but as I grow older too, they do not seem really old. Rather, they seem to be at the long end of a never-ending middle age.  I know them too well; have seen them in too many different stages of their lives, so none of them seem likely candidates for the dream lady.

“Inge Haxen, Inge Haxen, and we all know Inge Haxen,” the old song we kids invented and  sang  when going to visit our adopted  grandmother comes to mind, and although it is a long time since I have thought of Inge, she seems a promising candidate. A clever positive lady, full of fun and not too interfering, but always interested in everything we had to say. Her wonderful garden, filled with all sorts of sculptures and busts had a dream like quality about it which has not grown less with time and distance. She was an artist, and her and her much older husband, Olaf, had a bend for the philosophical which introduced new topics into conversations and helped widen our horizons.

Thinking of Inge I realize that I am being far too literal. I need to be more open-minded, more philosophical. I remember that I recently read an article about embracing your age, and that with a positive life-view and a healthy lifestyle you can grow happier with age. That miserable old people is a myth with no basis in the kind of lives we live today.

So maybe the old lady was me. I hope so.