Babying Around

 

Babying Around

Oh! If I were to be born again
To feel again the newness
Of being a brand new human

Cradle cap that never heals
Slippery skin that peels and peels
Changing color like a chameleon

Making bitter-sweet faces
Secretly smiling for no reason
And crying loud for every little

Looking around wide-eyed
In huge awe and wonder
At bright undefined hues

Amazed at all odd shapes
Jerking alert at rattle sounds
And at human voices

Sleeping the whole day
Waking the whole night
And keeping others awake

Lie on my back full day
Waiting to be picked up
And taken around

Convey hunger in loudest shrills
Making people run around
My family at my beck and call

Let everyone try to please me
While I amuse everyone around
By sucking my little foot thumb

Try to roll-over on my own
Fall from the bed crying
And get my mommy crying

Skin-to-skin with mommy
Looking at her angelic face
As she feeds me calmly

Cradling secure in dad’s arms
As and when he’s around
Till I grow too old for all this.

~Alka~

~~~ ~~~~

. Now I am too old for all this babying around and fancying doing cute stuff.

But we are still like a brand new baby on the day we are born, aren’t we?
And for me, that’s today…my birthday

Also a great day to be back to my blog…with my new baby poem

These Veterans of Motherhood

Young moms are moms. Sure!
Are older moms moms too?
Seen it all. Been there. Done that.
Rotund tummy, birthing nerves, joy at the new-born
Ones, who once changed and washed far more nappies
And soothed their colicky babies
Have now left teethers and rattles behind
Disposed them, barring a few…for sweet memories.

Arriving in an alien land, landing double-shift jobs
No extended families ever, lonely media-less times.
Walked their toddlers to child-care, settled them in a kindy
Initiated their primary schooler’s A, B, Cs and Ds
Exhausted weekends at (selective-school) coaching centres
Helped their prodigies with high-school projects
Made secure their future, saw them soar high
Empty handed moms – from their nest the kids fly
Soft-hearted moms become hardened moms

Young moms, still learning about motherhood?
Older mommies, the walking encyclopaedias
Been there. Done that. Seen it all.
Kind of still young, but growing older
Preparing for another dose of mom-hood
Booster shot, of becoming a grand(er) mom.
Some already are content grand-moms
Older moms, not less of a mom, if not more.
Not exactly passé, definitely not past

©Alka Girdhar 2016

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While writing this poem I had in my mind women friends who once arrived here in Australia as newly weds, or pregnant with their first child, while some had a toddler or two.

Over the years I have seen many of them undergo most of the above experiences as busy mothers, and now some of them are getting their children settled in jobs or marriage, while other moms would probably join them sometime in the coming years.

Recently I joined a mothers club. Many if not most women there are young mothers discussing problems faced by very new moms. There still are too many motherhood problems in this easy era of social media, even when most of them have plenty of helping hands around, that older moms never had.

Hence, I felt a need to remember the evolving role of the older, or should I say more experienced, mothers as well. Because the joys as well as responsibilities that come with motherhood continue for the whole life..

Life or Muse, Hard to Choose

Losing one’s writing voice. Not that big a crisis this. But if something goes missing, we do wonder. Wonder about its whereabouts.

Where are you my writing muse!
Come back dear!!!
Come! Come here!!
Come hither!
Come hither!!
Come hither…hither hither hither
Don’t be scared. Sit near. Come!!!
Promise! I won’t bind you. Won’t tie you down to a lamp post.
You know. I never tried to tame you like a pet.
But then I did try once.
To call you as and when I desired, and not when you wished to come.
But no success. Could I ever set days or hours apart, for writing or publishing?
No. And this non-rhythm worked for me.
Never let crude strategy kill the true spirit.

“…as immediately I stopped disciplining the muse,” said F. Scott Fitzgerald, “she trotted obediently around and became an erratic mistress if not a steady wife.”

So! That’s what you always were. Untamed and free to come and go.
And that is the reason you always followed me around. Vibrant. Liberated. Uninhibited.
Sitting on my shoulder, whispering sweet nothings.
We two were happy. Till life occurred.

~~~

Yes, life occurs, and raises questions and doubts. To live life, or to listen to one’s writing voice. Life or Muse? Muse or Life? Sometimes life wins.

Till later one day we again find ourselves using this very life, to embed it within our writing. Provided that by then our writing muse is not so annoyed that it refuses to come back.

Bright Side of Things

“Hope is the pillar that holds up the world. Hope is the dream of a waking man”
~ Pliny the Elder

Early Bird

Happy bird sings
Caught a worm and golden sun
Hopes blossomed

©Alka

Here’s some more:

Give It All
Flowers sing and die
Unheard, their beck and call
‘Give it all’

©Alka

     ~~~

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”
~~Desmond Tutu

Wishful Thinking

We always see the bright side
We’re keeping our hopes alive
That the day will never come
When birds stop singing
When flowers forget to bloom
As the earth burns down
As we bring on our doom

©Alka

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

I wrote the above haiku and the short poem for two challenges.
Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Challenge 106 hosted by Ronovan Writes. The two words for this week were Flower & Sing.
Also for Writer’s Quote Wednesday Weekly Challenge hosted by Colleen of The Silver Threading. This week’s theme was: Hope

Hope you enjoyed my poems!

Hallucinating Humans

Hallucinating Humans

Such perfect presumptions
About our advancement
We have, while we continue to
Annihilate our imperfect race
Hatred consummate
(Un)predictable fate

© 2016 Alka Girdhar

~~~

. Unpredictable

She Doesn’t Look Nice But…

An abstract by Carl Holty you may not like

She never looked too nice!
She looked like some art
And art wasn’t meant to look nice
It was supposed to make you think
and feel something, stir your heart…

She is my creation – my art
My words, writing, poetry
Authentic and true to heart
Why should she always be
Beautiful in your sense of world?
Why should she

Never Say Die

~ Ornamental flowers and Dandelion weeds in the same yard ~

 

Never Say Die

Soaked alike in golden sun
Who looks better?
the flowers or the weeds
the accepted or the rejected
the adored or the detested

Side-by-side in their race
for life. Who wins better?
the docile or the aggressive
the frail or the hardy
the shy or the pushy

Hated by the natives, the
resilient all-pervading wilds
stay on, though stomped and razed
shine on, with their heads raised
Indefatigable and unrelenting
thick-skinned stubborns, absorb
nicks and kicks, to unashamedly
survive and thrive; never say die

©2016 Alka

~~~ ~~~

For: The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge Opposites

When She Learnt to Get Her Voice Heard

Aria was visiting her native land after many years, and she visited her high school after what seemed like ages. As she parked her car near her school, she stood looking at a pathway and saw herself once again. Distant. A faint silhouette slowly moving away.

~~~

Young Aria sitting on the back seat of her school teacher’s bicycle while he rode leisurely. This slow-moving bike journey along the short tree-lined path, took them from their school to All India Radio, the local radio-station that had recording studios within. Those days when private channels had not yet mushroomed, the government-run AIR was the only radio-station in her city.

Ode To Pingbacks

Ode To Pingbacks

You sense their presence
Not when they are there
But when they are not.

When they refuse to work
When they go on strike
Like some bunch of union workers
Usually overlooked and small
Taken for granted by big shots
Seemingly unimportant
Till they decide to hold down
A smoothly running system
And bring it to a sudden halt

But unlike overworked underpaid workhorses
They sulk not, not even complain
Or file their written protest summon
Or wait for ages for some fair windfall

Pingbacks vanish without a warning or a ping
And come back on their own, not when we call

*****

 

Playful Pingbacks

How often does it happen, that
With all our champion ideas galore
A writer’s block grips us
And words just refuse to pour!

It also happens that, when
Through our heart’s hems and seams
Creativity overflows and brims
But that’s when playful pingbacks cheat

No wonder then that
Our masterpieces die un’discovered’
For they are not even born.

Hey! Do you think my logic is wrong?

 

I wrote these two when pingbacks were not working. But I got busy and I could post only now.
.

Stranded No More…

Stranded No More…

When seclusion callously corrodes
Every inch of your fine being
When it’s all dark and dreary
And your heart is tired and weary
Your eyes too solemn and teary.

Then lose no heart, O comrade!
The gloom will soon evaporate
The beaming rays will finally break
Through the engulfing black clouds
Compelling them to dissipate

Hang in there some more time!
For soon time will turn around
Get ready to smile and welcome
The crystal clear blue skies and
Golden happiness all around

© 2016 Alka Girdhar

~~~ ~~~

In response to #writephoto Photo Prompt ‘Isolation’ by Sue Vincent..