Morning in our Family
Morning in our Family
“Ok, bye Daddy, I’m going”
Floats across the drawing room
From my daughter, dressed in sari.
Blue and greed are SCB colours,
Where she works for last 12 years,
Now looks like a walking Bank!
Very few MBAs stick to same job
Greed impels them, and fear of stagnating,
She is of a different breed!
Money doesn’t matter much to her
She spends freely; gives generously;
Saves minimum; behaves like a non-MBA.
My wife is on the other sofa,
Talking to Zorro and the other cats
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poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph
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Parijaat
What a pleasant surprise! I see
Parijaat flowers spilled on the pavement,
And the nondescript tree smiling nearby
With one or two flowers loosely linked to it,
As I do my usual morning walk
In the Bandra-Kurla area, which houses
The International Finance and Business Centre
Of Mumbai city on West coast of India.
The flowers are small with six white petals,
Twirled clock-wise, and very tender;
Each supported by a glowing orange stalk
They have a centre dot of orange again,
Merging into a bright yellow rim around.
Above all, it is the fragrance I love best,
Unique, no perfumery has yet captured it;
Exotic and intoxicating, and no wonder
Our ancient rishis hailed it the flower
Blossoming in the gardens of Heaven.
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poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph
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Emptiness of Words
On morning walk, I raise my eyes up,
Not like King David to the mountains,
But to purple flowers, the Pride of India
Queen’s flowers, blossoming bunches out
This hot April summer on Bandra pavement.
I look further up, sky is blue unusually!
Filled with many pieces of clouds
In different shapes and sizes;
To describe cannot go beyond
Squares, circles, triangles, rectangles etc
As if all shapes are governed by angles alone.
What about angels of irregular sponges,
Candyfloss shot through with morning silver,
Evolving like forms of life vibrant, joyful?
In this hot summer April month alone,
More than a billion Indians feel anger
And each Indian a thousand times:
Yet anger is the only available word!
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poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph
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U Turns of Life
I have become an aggregator
A few years ago, but after retirement.Started
As I recall when I went from home in Bandra,
To south Mumbai, I would try to think of
Every other thing to be done, and list it.
It began with one timebound thing
Say file data with CA for IT return
Then why not buy that book in the Strand
Take some passport photographs in the Asiatic
Opposite Churchgae, buy a DVD in Rhythm House,
Give watch for repair, buy pair of missing
Brown socks, and so on.
This leads to forgetting some,
And then to doubt about memory,
Onset of Alzheimers, or fear of Parkinson
Genes from Papa.
Now I am in a 'disaggregating' spiral
Dont want to link up one to the other
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poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph
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Car-washers
As I walk half a kilometer
To MIG Cricket Club for my gym
I see cars parked on either side
Of the wide street outside the compound-gates.
Time is 7 30 am, and the month is of Janus,
The Sun is rising, and it is chill
This year (2008) unusually in Mumbai
Never been so cold in forty-odd years.
Around many cars are water-patches
In irregular design on the asphalted road.
Every other car is being tended
By the car washers. They charge
From 200 to 400 rupees a month
Depending upon the society they serve.
The car washer gets the key from owner
To open up and clean including floor mats
Made free of yesterday's dust,
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poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph
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Rain-tree
Rain-tree
The rain-tree is of cassia family -
Like an elephant it stands on the road, clothed
With thick green foliage, dark against the sky
All along the Bandra-Kurla road in Mumbai.
You have to exert a little and see
Over the top to see the nazuna-type
Of pink flowers sitting above the foliage
In plentiful numbers, with up-thrust pink hairs.
Unlike the African tulip in front of ONGC
At Bandra Flyover visible from the distance,
Here the pink and green does not show off
As rain-tree flowers don’t advertise themselves.
Unlike copper-pod’s bright yellow flowers
The rain tree flowers don’t weave a carpet:
I’ve never seen the flowers on the ground below
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poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph
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Colors to Notice
While on morning walk today,
Thought emerges to describe the color
Of Mumbai sky, but can’t get the correct word:
It is aluminum-like, light gray,
Same wherever on the entire irregular patch
Of sky in Bandra, I am allowed to see through
Hedged in by trees, buildings and roofs.
As the eyes sweep down, the colors
Around me attract: green, blue,
Black, yellow, red BEST bus, the objects reflecting
There is no end to my counting:
In green alone I can see
Seventeen different shades.
Once I start enjoying the difference
Between one green and another
Luxuriant, shiny or dark,
Light-green, or parrot or bluish green
Or green seen against sunlight from below
Or with sunlight falling on the green leaves, -
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The Vicks Inhaler
It is years, why decades since I use it
Only now I find Vicks is ayurvedic:
I find now it to be used within two years
From date of manufactured printed on it
At the bottom: I didnot know that either.
Partly this gives answer to my question
Of what I should look forward to in retirement.
There is so much to learn even about
Ordinary things: life made easier,
More beautiful, more helpful and so on.
My haemorrhaged brain jumps
To shlokas of short Isopanishad
Which starts with Isa word
Standing for God, the One Beyond: it says,
KNOWLEDGE and IGNORANCE take you to hell.
I am sure it does: more knowledge means
More problems and aches, like more money!
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poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph
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Old Man Says Farewell Cheerfully
What is left in life to do
Except to make much
Of the moments, all of them.
Whatever has to happen
Has been done and over:
Now, is the age of retirement.
Nothing 'has' to be done,
And I accept every thing that happens,
Every comment made on me.
Try hard, not hard but try to live
My life without any tension,
Except when anger or lust takes over.
William Butler Yeats at 60
Had identified these two
As spurring him to song.
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poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph
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Moon Tonight
The turn my car took on Bandra flyover
Helped me see the part of sky with Moon.
And she looked round-faced – full Moon?
Chauffeur had steadied the car, I was not sure.
Mind went back a few years to my Delhi home
I had counted the full moons to my retirement:
Tried to go up on my terrace in Lodhi Garden
On every bright moon-lit night, alas, alone.
Now I wonder how many full moons before death?
But I don’t know how to time the interval between
Now and Death’s arrival for me: why not every one?
Perhaps there can be no better addition of riches to life.
From home, I put off TV, wore shoes, closed door,
And went down to walk under the Moon: she was
On the East at an angle: only if I walk East I see her.
Now I pass the lane between FDA and Artek Nagar.
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poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph
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