I’m on Twitter as the ‘on-line one-line poet’. Follow for all sorts of comments and sighs of joy or frustration, depending on the condition of the weather and the world.

Rilla Norslund @Rillaspoems

It is so hard to write or post anything this week as the terrible building collapse in Savar and the terrible human tragedy, the people dead, still trapped, searching desperately for loved ones seem to fill everything. It is still too raw to be writable, but any other topic seems irrelevant in comparison. So I post a simple poem of protest at injustice and for now leave the journalists and photographers to to say what can be said at this time.

Can you not see?

Do you not see that there are changes ahead?

The smog is laden with dread  and the fish are all dead

Can you not feel that there is bad news to come?

There are kids on the run and the sound of a gun

Can you not sense that people don’t feel the same?

That it’s not just a shame where there’s no one to blame

Do you believe that you’ll be let off the hook?

There’s a child with a book, can you not read that look?

Do you not see that we must all raise our voice?

There is really no choice, got to challenge their noise

Can you not tell that it is time to speak out?

As the storm blows about, got to step out and shout

Can you not smell that there is filth in the air?

Big business won’t share, politicians don’t care

Do you not sense that it is time to think clear?

To consider what’s dear and to speak without fear

Do you believe that we make an impact?

If we all make a pact holding on to the facts

Will you be the change that you’re hoping to see?

just a drop in the sea is the start that we need

A thought for those in Savar today, facing the horror.

A restless sleep  – I know that nearby in Sava there are those who did not sleep last night – and those who will not wake this morning

The last weeks we have had much political unrest and a number of Hatals, or general strikes, in Dhaka so I have hardly been out of the city. I miss the countryside and the busy, hardworking farmers we work with. This week’s poem talks about the feeling I get when I get out of Dhaka and when we finally get out of the vast sprawling city and into the countryside.

Leaving the city

After high-rises, massive concrete apartment blocks,

Grubby Lego-block towns with washing hanging down

Corrugated iron worlds stumbling on forever

But after the brick fields’ belching chimneys

After the dumps with herds of black scavenging pigs

After the last rickshaw graveyard

At last we see the green fields

Emerald green paddy fields

Vibrating rice growth so lush the plants hustle for space

Brown cloud frays and light brightens as villages replace towns

Dark patterned shadows in bamboo groves,

Deep green ponds offer cool invitations from the road side,

Where ducks waddle and goats rub lazy tree trunks

People bend tenderly, tending their crops, milking their cows  

Narrow tree-lined lanes tempt you away from the highway

The gleaming black of a fork-tailed drongo flashes through ripening grain

Black feathered twirl and one short-horned grasshopper meets his maker

Drongo, having paid for her seat, returns to the perch placed for her use

Life slows to organic speed where crops grow and time is measured in seasons

Where big wheeled buffalo carts determine speed

Families gather in shady swept yards to eat food they have grown

from seeds they have sown

We’re just back from a couple of days on Bangladesh’s number one local tourist destination; Cox Bazaar. This beach is apparently the longest beach in the world, and a place where people can escape the city and experience some beach life. For us, it was a very different type of beach life, with most people standing or walking on the beach and those few who brave the waves do so fully dressed. It is a unique place, and I find, best appreciated if you see it as a child growing up in Dhaka might see it….

Cox Bazaar

See it through the eyes of a child if you can;

a child raised in big city apartment cage

An apartment lately filled with beach anticipation

This beach, reached by crowded nighttime bus

A bus where you sleep, upright, clutching your bag

To see when you arrive, sore and grouchy from the drive

To see, to see at last, strange and vast

The sea

See it through the eyes of a child if you can;

A child soaked in rules of culture, faith, society,

All society on holiday, transformed on naked beach

On sandy beach, mother’s hair across her face

In bright cotton sari, laughing, submersing in waves

To see as you watch, half thrilled, half shocked,

To see, to see at last, strange and vast

The sea

See it through the eyes of a child if you can;

A child photographed in waves, small and wet

All wet from splashes, laughter, sweat

Shocked by power of roaring, slapping waves

Waves and wind unregulated, wild

To feel, pulled and wrenched, half scared, all drenched

To feel, to feel at last, strong and vast

The sea

This week, another poem resulting from the prompts provided by the wonderful ladies of Writer’s International, and reflecting the changing state and status and role that I face as my middle years roll on and my sons grow up.

Yesterday

Yesterday I thought I could hold on to you,

keep you like something that was all my own

That childhood would stretch on and on like that beach where we played,

like those summer evenings when the sun just wouldn’t go down

 Childhood a permanent condition not a passing state of affairs

Despite your undeniable height and the deepening of your voice

I would always be waking you, calling you,

time to shower

bus is here…

Yesterday, I was serving treats for you at the end of busy school days,

arguing about forgotten homework and unobserved curfews

Today those small shoes in the hallway,

And going upstairs to call you down for tea

Your arm so comfortable around her shoulder

so naturally

she leans slightly towards you

Today I recognize that yesterday was yesterday

Today a new day has arrived

I have my diving instructor niece visiting for a few weeks and so lots of talk of diving and snorkeling and the undersea world; her special world.

Kristina’s world

My Princess’ garden lies beneath the sea,

I’m upside down and it’s floating up to me

Bubbles are rising up the octopus walk

Little lips move and the blue fish talk

There’s a flash and crackle and a sparkle of light

The sun shine waves and the schoolers look bright

The sunlight is warped and bent out of shape

The seahorse rides without any cape

Its blue, red, yellow and it’s gone in a flash

The parrot fish swim, swivel, swirl and dash

Over by the rocks the seals seal the deal  

Agree on their interest with a shove you can feel

The wind of the waves is ruffling my hair

And the needle fish stitch along in pairs

The turtle trundles, there’s a plant with an eye

The octopus offers up her samples of dye

The fusion of colours and the colour confusion

Is it really real or an optical illusion?

A little piece of poetic writing, as a break from poems. A short owl story from our life in Uganda.

Owl Territory

Did you know that owls are territorial? That you cannot simply rescue a poor half-starved abandoned baby owl, bring it home, feed it and keep it, nurse it back to health, and then bit by bit release it, half tame, half wild thing, into your apparently owl-free garden?

In the clash between wild things in a very small piece of original forest behind the camping area at the sailing club, you might be lucky enough to pay attention to the unusual noise from monkeys and birds. You might be surprised to see a mean old male monkey heading down a tree trunk to pick up something, some wet and weak thing, some bundle of bones and feathers trembling in the grass at the base of the tree. And with a shout, and instinctive waving of arms, you run to save whatever it is, to find what pathetic little thing is causing such outrage. What enemy-of-the-common-creatures do the furious birds and apes see in this odd shaped thing, so barely alive?

Once you have picked it up, held in your hand the trembling, the heart beat against bird-breast ribs, well then there is no putting it back. No way to put it back that isn’t murder, that isn’t handing it over to the survival of the fittest justice of the furious wild mob.

And so it makes its way back to your city garden, and the boys must surrender one football goal to be made into an owl cage. Ungratefully it pecks furiously at the hand that feeds it, refuses to eat what is offered, and turns its head 180 degrees to avoid the tasty morsels procured for its eating pleasure, as if trying to screw off its head like a bottle top and throw its life away.

But starvation is on your side and slowly Owl is won over. Her feeble calls become slightly louder, and in the football goal a save, a life starts to return, and shifts about, like a little old man, from one leg to the other. Feathers start to be preened and there is a rustling and a bustling in the cage, and demanding shrieks and screeches at dusk when you approach.

Fearfully you make the first moves towards restricted freedom as owl walks wide eyed, with wings out stretched at odd angles, restlessly moving about the bottom of the cage. Disaster strikes, and in a clumsy flurry of wings and claws suddenly she sits, a ball of feathers, turning her head round and round and blinking at the wide, free world.

But again, hunger works its magic and at dusk the next day, there she is, sitting on top of the goal-cage, screeching for dinner, moving rapidly and excitedly from leg to leg. A new routine is established. All day she sleeps in the tree above the cage and at dusk she comes down, sitting precariously on the clothes line, screeching and calling for meat, nipping at your hand in sadistic tenderness, clutching at the slight swaying line and allowing a little rubbing of the neck before she departs for the night.

But one evening you feel suddenly the cold shudder of your neck hairs standing on end and you know someone is watching. Somewhere furious, luminous eyes are taking in the scene. On the telephone pole at the corner of the garden a large frowning owl watches the evening feeding and you sense he has been watching for some time. When you turn away a dark shadow and the swish of wide silent wings brushes past, and little owl tumbles from the washing line in shock. 

For the coming days Owl trembles in terror in the vicinity of the cage and house while the great owl patrols the garden, and there is nothing to be done. No intervention you can make in the natural order of things. You see them less and less and one day in the not very distant future little Owl, now grown big and healthy, but still no match for the great owl, is gone.

Later, you will sometimes see, after the first rains, an owl, sometimes two, walking around on the lawn at night, like old men inspecting the garden. Heads bobbing, as if in conversation, they stroll about the dark garden, picking out of the grass the oily, flailing bodies of flying ants. And you always wonder, is it Owl? Is it Owl with a mate? Does she remember the feel of a human finger tickling her neck and the taste of meat served at the washing line?

This week’s poem is the first I have written with inspiration, comments and encouragement from an online expat writers group I have recently joined, and is a mix of memories and imagination. A step in a new direction.

Owl

Moonrise

owl wakes in the night

blinks round eyes,

frowns at the moon,

takes flight

Cat,

high stepping

across the dewy lawn

takes fright,

Yowl and hoot

And the scurrying of mice

Wingbeats

Owl swooping over dark fields

Silent dark shadow

seeing what night

conceals,

Eyes,

Round glowing

slow-blinking eyes

existence reveals

Moon smiles

Silent reflections on the lake

As the year on my birth certificate becomes more and more distant and the half time bell comes and goes, I embrace my age and my life and the learning that I have have gained. But…. I must admit a well placed compliment does warm the heart…

Lucky age

How lucky that no one told me I looked young for my age

When I was,

But instead saved it

For now, when I’m clearly, nearly, not