Of butterflies and glass ceilings

Of butterflies and glass ceilings

For too long , we have flitted
In butterfly gardens
Dissipating color , hope
In controlled hot houses

For too long have we longed
For the clear blue skies
From underneath glass ceilings
Built , we are told, for our protection

For too long have we grubbed
Slaved, gathered, spun silk
For the comfort of our keepers
Flitted, fluttered for their entertainment

Open up those ceilings
Follow our erratic , ecstatic flight
Out into the endless blue
All the while keeping faith

That we will still pause
To shed color , hope in lives
During our own short-lived ones
That, we will pause to caress
Your fingertips with a brush
Of colored hope

And gather the warmth
Of summer days
In your rejoicing hearts
As you follow our jerky route
Upwards, onward
Towards the endless blue

--shubha


P.S A few lines that came to me in response to a picture prompt on an online poetry group, The Woman Inc Poetry Project .

Up-rooted

Up-rooted

Not all roots stay hidden, out of sight
Secure in earth's dark embrace, tight

Some defy norm, fly , spread, silvery white
On new found shelter,support, airy, bright

Draw nectar from the thin air, through sheer will
With cheerfulness for their lot , duties fulfill

Take little from their provider, where they have boarded
Pay their dues with blooming orchids

--shubha

P.S. For those migrants who set roots in different places. A few lines that came to me in response to a prompt roots on an online poetry group, Wordsmiths .

Do you see my roots ?

Do you see my roots ?


Do you see my roots?
In how I stand , stoop, bend, sway

Do they show, in my appearance
Like ribboned smiles of kindness
In the color of my many thoughts?

Do you hear them ?
As a whisper of truth
In the rustling of my speech

Do you feel them ?
As gentle caress of deeds shed
Or as the whiplash of a tormented
Scream in a storm ?

Do you taste the sweetness
Of their essence
In the fruits, I gift ?

This vast , invisible community
Of tangled, crisscrossing webs
That sustains me , nurtures me
Reaches relentlessly to quench my thirst
That binds me , anchors me
To a bedrock of identity

Between whose solid support
And my stubborn quest
To reach the sky
I find space
To grow, stretch, reach, fly
To spread
To find me
To be

Do you see my roots ?


--shubha

P.S. In response to a prompt roots on a online poetry group .

Home within

Home within

We do not belong anywhere
And we belong to all places
How can there be separation or meeting
When there is no other ?

Wayfarer, on a journey
To understand our own truth
What claim do we have to any place
What place, can lay claim to us ?

We belong to all places
And to none at all
All those places, we ever touched
That ever touched us
Reside within ourselves

We carry our home
Not on our backs
But in our hearts

And each moment, when we love
We return home
Each moment , when we desire,
We embark on new journeys
To find our way home


--shubha

Images

Images

I stitch myself together out of the many images

A glued together identity, fluid that stretches

Reflections of perceptions,grow, stay,shatter

Ever changing , taking shape of the container, as water

Bound, chiseled ,shaped by my multitude of desires

They rise like the Phoenix, burn in disappointments' fire 

Help cast away these false reflections  of a small, confining me

And in so shedding pretense , be one with You, bask in your glory.

--shubha 

Destination marked

Destination marked

Destination marked
Crossed in anticipation
Soar, set your aim high

--shubha

Mute songs

Mute songs

Blustery fall days
Whisk away leaves, my mute songs
Discards of time past

--shubha

Peresphone's return

Persephone's return


Glowing screens abduct
Young brains, lure them
With seeds of over stimulation
Prisoner to the stupor of excesses
Until they are queens of this alternate world


She lives there far away
Shedding innocence, presence
Along the way
Price of a fantastical occupation
Lost to real play


While Demeter searches high, low
For her little girl , lost to this world
Where neither the pleading, cajoling
Nor the threats , secure her release
Until the ultimatum


And then for a brief period
Her child is returned to her
She runs on the grass
Chases butterflies
Finds her innocence , her childhood
And the world rejoices
In their meeting


It takes love, a mother's steady refusal
To give up on the best in you
Her refusal to accept anything less
To release you , from the prison of your own fears, boredom
To put a spring in your step
To return spring to a waiting earth


And yet she returns to her glowing prison
From time to time, to queen over a new level
And her mother waits
Knowing she will return , for a while
To be her child again
To dance , bring joy, plenty
And mother, screen coexist in uneasy acceptance.


--shubha




P.S. Trying to describe a modern mother's frustration with a child's screen addiction , tying it to the Greek myth of Persephone , Daughter of Zeus and Demeter, the goddess of fertility who was abducted by Hades , the king of the Netherworld . Demeter wins her daughter's release for six months of the year and her coming is spring , but as she accepted some pomegranate seeds from Hades , Persephone returns to the Netherworld for six months when the plants sleep , awaiting her return .

Shedding

Shedding 

I breathe that amorphous scent

Rising from wet earth

Not quite of the ground

Nor of the water

But for the brief period 

Of their mating

I breathe

I glow in the last light

That kisses the trees good night 

In the slanting shafts 

Interleaving shadows

I glow

I unfold in every moment of beauty

Blossoming among the mundane

To transform it

In their meeting 

I bloom

With every whiff, every glint , every unfolding 

That reveals you

Reveals me

I clothe myself 

With just one more strand of your love

Shed one more pretense

So wrapped, naked

Soak in a sliver of the truth, highlighted.

--shubha