Just back from Istanbul, this week’s poem can only be about that awe inspiring city, and the happy days spent there is company with my family. Our unguided morning walks were one of the many delights

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Istanbul morning

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Birds fly for pleasure, flashing light from morning minarets

Lace up and run down stairs leaving guidebook and map

Drawn like pilgrims to floating domes and ancient towers

Blue tiles and the genius of ancient architects

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Stride along city walls built, torn down, rebuilt by long forgotten hands

Stones in palace walls speak of princes, born to death, power, or madness

And elegant garden trees swaying in whispers from the Harem,

hooves ring out and crowds cheer in the hippodrome

The sun heats up and across the water colossal cruise ships threaten a flood

We dodge down narrow streets, returning to drink too deeply our first coffee

Coughing and laughing over pomegranate juice, olives

 and other Turkish delights

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First impressions of Istanbul, staying in the old city. A good place to turn one year older, as a single year, is nothing, here.

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Istanbul

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Istanbul, paved with amazing tiles of history.

Centuries of beauty and battles,

religion driving love and death,

power and passion.

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The blue mosque presides over old town,

majestic as a mountain,

moody in the changing light.

We return to gaze, morning, noon and night.

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Skipping on the surface tension of time,

how young we are

in Istanbul

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After grey days it is good to remember to breath deeply, to remind oneself that each day comes only once…

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Raise your head

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Raise your head, lift your eyes –

See the drifting clouds redraw themselves

in stories of the sky

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Leave alone your counting –

Business cards and calendar days,

hours spent in traffic

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Straighten your back, lift your shoulders –

Breathe deep into your consciousness

the shifting colours of passing day

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No more slouching, shallow breathing –

Jagged streams of consciousness

through restless, sleepless hours

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Raise your arms, raise your voice –

Feel the pulse of vitality,

be counted amongst the living

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“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.” Karen Blixen

From my morning run…

mongoose crosses my path at high speed –

an exclamation mark looking for a situation

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Thursday evening, 4th of October, members of our Dhaka meditation group met to celebrate World Animal Day, and each shared a favorite poem about animals. I decided to share a poem about our late grate rooster, Chickie-boo… here is the poem.

Chickie-boo

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Cock-a-doodle-doo said Chickie-boo

For the first time today

And we all sat upright on our chairs

And the hens clucked their hurray

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Cock-a-doodle-doo said Chickie-boo

Stretching neck and looking shocked

He’d always thought he was a person

His foundations have been rocked

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Cock-a-doodle-doo said Chickie-boo

And the hens came out the bush

All their heads are bobbing up and down

And their eyes are bright and flush

Then old grey hen did a victory lap

At high speed around the yard

And the younger birds came rushing back

through the gate that we had barred

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Cock-a-doodle-doo said Chickie-boo

And our flock is looking up

All three hens are sparkling happily

As they fluff their feathers up

Now they’re crowding round our Chickie

And they’re looking mighty pleased

They all glow bright-eyed and healthy

Though they went to roost diseased

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Cock-a-doodle-doo said Chickie-boo

Stretching wings and neck and thigh

And he’s looking kind of handsome now

He’s got a twinkle in his eye

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Cock-a-doodle-doo said Chickie-boo

“There’s a cock around the place,

Now I’m going to bring some order”

And the hens bow to his grace

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In Dhaka we are experiencing the first of the clear days of autumn. For a short time, after the end of the monsoon and before the land around the city dries up enough for the brick factories to start pumping out vast quantities of bricks and black smoke, we have these clear days. Remember to enjoy them!

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Autumn in Dhaka

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Clear days are here, days are warm with cool ends,

Dragon has settled, his slumbers extend

Sun rises late for our date at first light

Mullah calls early to bring home the night

Green booms in the markets, blooms fresh in the parks

Clear days are here and early comes dark

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anticipation – at least half of the joy of a holiday,

reminiscing – that’s the cherry on top

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The writers group I belong to suggested we write something inspired by the familiar life around the kitchen table. I mused on that a while, and realised that after my family emigrated from Denmark to colonial Rhodesia we didn’t really have a kitchen table we could sit around…. that lead to further musings and memories and the following prose poem.

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Kitchen table

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I left the kitchen table when I was only seven years old

The plastic table cloth was rolled up one last time, and Mother served no more pancakes

The equality of the Nordic kitchen was replaced by a short dark man called Adam

who cooked meals for our family and served platters and dishes at a long dining table

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People came to the dining room, hands behind their backs, to speak to my father

There were no more farmhands teasing sleepy children over late eggy breakfasts

Our father grew distant at the far end of the table and we kept stories at our end

We learned to eat baked beans and bacon, and then it was time for boarding school

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I’m back in Dhaka after a lovely summer in Denmark – back without the rest of the family as the boys have started school in Denmark and Torben will stay with them for a while. The house seems empty and I feel I am needed elsewhere… taking up my Dhaka life again requires some effort. I try to express something of what I feel in this poem:

Reality

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I was so there, so rooted,

Feet firm, running, laughing, loving

With them… and them, and him, and her

And you; it was so right and so real

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Here now, the ground is not quite stable

Reality has pulled on different robes

I hear the story end, but missed its starting

I laugh too, but I didn’t share the joke

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Tomorrow brings new tales, I’ll join the laughing

Days pass and walk securely on the ground

Dull aches replace the sharper pains of missing,

Adjusting expectations; I will be here

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