I see now that on the other sites on NaPoWriMo.net poets are explaining how they are getting to their poems. I have been keeping notes on that for myself, so today I’ll start including them here as well.
The haiku arose from my irritation with my errand-filled days.
The second poem originated after I thought about the young waiters at Carey Hilliards, one of Savannah’s local restaurants. Young people seemed equally rich because of the wealth of their youth, like brides with bouquets, and it lead me to consider other bouquets in life.
Evening clouds and
swaying branches, unseen as
she runs her errands.
copyright 2012 Ujjvala Bagal Rahn
Bouquet
A teenager in a tired blue apron
serves a teenager in expensive clothes.
Youth is the flower in their bouquet.
Your new baby blooms in your arms,
your little rose, your open door.
Like a bride you step into the day.
Two people stride together.
They smile and talk in their cocoon of light.
Love is the flower in their bouquet.
Two people begin a life together,
before their family, or before the sky.
They hold hands. They step into the day.
Age means nothing. Wealth is just cash.
Life is the flower in your bouquet.
Be the bride. Step into the day.
copyright 2012 Ujjvala Bagal Rahn
Attic overstuffed
with detritus, rags, scraps, rubble:
my fat red journal.
April morrning mist.
A cat lies dead in the road.
We glance it - drive on.
Home, you are the lap I made myself,
circling back to you like a two-year-old.
Home, you are the cave of my dreams,
the jewelry box of my secrets,
the gallery of my days.
Home, you cosset my vision
like a blanket-padded bed,
like heavy curtains.
Home, I leave you behind like my birth family.
Home, I return to you like a prodigal son.
Home, we hold hands, we have had a long marriage.
Home, you and I are aging,
you don’t mind my bathrobe and my snores.
Home, will I ever change?
Home, the clock ticks behind the TV roar.
Home, one day you’ll forget me,
as if I were just another stranger
melting back into the crowds,
and finally nothing will contain me.
copyright 2012 Ujjvala Bagal Rahn
A white shirt, blue jeans,
a watch and comfortable
shoes: ready for work.
copyright 2012 Ujjvala Bagal Rahn
White shirt: crisp in the
morning, wrinkled by evening,
like a woman’s face,
who is too immersed in life
to check the mirror.
copyright 2012 Ujjvala Bagal Rahn
Tanka
Oh, the luxury:
a sunny day at the park
and market among
my fellow humanity,
then back to home’s solitude.
copyright 2012 Ujjvala Bagal Rahn
Entropy
He planted rosebushes
in front of my house, like four guards.
For three years now, fuchsia explodes
in the green world of my yard.
He had to improve things,
he couldn’t just visit us,
he had to serve still,
he had to leave something to us.
What kind of life is it,
to do nothing all day, everyday,
to stop moving forward,
to let entropy have its way?
But he was never robust, At 71,
his body is leaving him.
His lungs are weak from smoking,
his sight’s a bit dim.
Someday, too, the bushes will peter out,
the green yard will brown and dry.
The ceiling crack inching wider will one day
leave my porch open to the sky.
Porches and people and roses
crumble back to atoms, and so
recycle back to the universe.
Is this terror? I don’t know.
copyright 2012 Ujjvala Bagal Rahn
Check out our Original ASL Videos, Poetry and Fiction
Mason-Dixon Publishing's first paperback book is finally here! These provocative short stories will challenge you and take you to exotic places and times.
Click here to see an excerpt from the book and to make your order.