When ceilings cave in, what do I do?

There are writing days and not writing days, I realise as I sit with jazz playing on the phone and the sunshine dappled outside. The fragrance of mogra agarbattis waft through the house. That's got one more shade of yellow in a bathroom that was unused for many months.

I remember the shock of the evening, as I was preparing to drive home after a very meaningful workshop on culturally sensitive pedagogy in May. 22nd it was. As is my habit, I checked my cell phones to confirm that the kids were okay before I drove off to get home. What in the world is that, I startled, looked again at the photo that filled my 4S screen. Red, black blotched, and all over the bathtub, the ceiling had fallen into the bathtub. I was shocked and delighted that while this was OMG a huge expense, my son was not injured due to a delay at school. Else he would have been in the tub showering after school. And hurt. 

It was a very odd and sad night. Is the house falling apart, do we have to move, where shall I find the money to get this fixed? Many questions swirled through our minds and I am sure we said less to one other than we did to ourselves.

And now looking back, I wonder how those weeks were a metaphor for life at this time in my life. The ceiling came crashing down, there's debris everywhere. So what did we do?

We shut the door, turned on the exhaust regularly to let the mugginess reduce, we started using another space until this got sorted out. We did not sit at the door of that crashed-in washroom and weep, we did not moon over what now and what next. We just shut that door and waited for each day to work itself through. And it did. 

So now there's this matter of an incomplete form that has to be sent back that made me feel incompetent. I know now to brush off that feeling as someone else's judgement from an oppressive past that is not, over.

I shall just print that form, fill it out, sign it and fax it off to wherever it has to go. Before long, that matter too will be resolved. 

So that's all it is. Until the ceiling gets fixed, just shut the door and live one day at a time.

And think of the day when the skylight streams sunshine down.

For Abshir, on this sunlit day

What kind of a world is this

Where young men call their friends in the wee hours

To tell of a brother shot dead 

At the kerbside ?

 I find out from 

An app alert

And hope 

that it isn't you

Naah, I say

Surely there's more

Of your name, Abshir 

Though I knew that

There's just one you

Who found time to chat between classes

And apologized for a late response to an email 

just a few months ago

I hope and 

block out 

all questions swirling 

like fallen leaves 

through my scattered mind

But confirmations come

"Our Abshir?" I ask

And a response: yes, 

our Abshir!

then the numb hollow

In my heart

In this 

tortured, 

twisted 

space

An email mocks me 

My inbox, 

With your heartfelt words 

Just like at

Winters and TEL

"I'll come to your class someday

I promise"

Come to my class today

You did, Abshir 

we 

taught 

poetry 

together

Like 

we'd 

planned to

Me, trapped in this

Heavy cage of bones

And you, 

a wisp of mist

This sunshine day

already a memory

What kind of place is this

Where we mourn 

young men

Dead before their time

What 

kind 

of place 

is 

this? 

July 8th, 2014(c)

Parking lot of summer school

Long distance love

I speak to my sister regularly
two beads on a single strand
that must not unravel in this lifetime

yet our busy lives at opposite ends
of this global village
are disconnected

my question: who was that child in the picture
is met with surprise
and we Skype immediately
to set that right
my ignorance and lack of knowing
that the little one
can walk briskly
and has so many baby teeth
and talks and asserts

like the Blind King of long ago
I wait for the screen to clear
and I see my face in the corner
so like the one I will never see again in that space

the girls are grown, including their mother
who was a baby I held the day she was born
and I, the Elder
give thanks
for invisible heartstrings
and modern technology.