KASHMIR

You speak with me in dream  - eastern ascetic man
Commune with me whatever we seem to say
  When I ask you where you come from
     Turning you look at me telling “Kashmir”.

High land of sapphires, walnut and mulberry
Whose lakes reflect the hills in their violet depths
  Glaciers melt to crystal rivers
     Kingfishers skim amid water lilies.

The Fisher King may dwell in the Shalimar
And we catch fire -  to selve and to bear the light
  Whose the face we each reflect?
     Jesus the one and the thousand thousand.

Kashmir afar I love and remember you
Fine wool, fine rice, fine silk such as dreamers find
  Once in life and ever long for
     Now I must rest in the bluebird’s promise.



ENTWINED
 
Guardians of India, idealists yet surgeons
or engineers, my ancestors to six generations
spent lives, sweat, tears, wives and children.
Home was a word in the heart, almost strange.

My medical grandpa: the only surviving child from ten.
My own three siblings died. How precious I was
To my parents! My mother’s passion the birds and trees,
bright flowers that bloomed in the dust tra la.

India and Scotland are entwined like a Kashmir shawl
round my life. The knot cannot be unravelled but
can uncoil like a snake, start up like the brain-
fever-bird that disturbs any chance of rest.



MODEL  SENTENCES

(poems inspired by some of the sentences for which the Urdu was learnt by heart 
as a model for tenses and modes of expression, when I first lived in Pakistan  in 
January 1960 as a Church of Scotland missionary’s wife to work in women and 
children’s welfare)


poem one

‘Ruth said, “Whither thou goest I shall go, and where thou lodgest I shall lodge’

I had been born in India
The man I loved in Scotland
would be a missionary
I had my doubts
about my religious doubts
not about the adventure of Pakistan

On reaching the ‘mission field’
I felt myself come home
but daily  had to prove
my credentials, as one who had
chosen the life for love of a man
rather than ‘love of God’


poem two

I’m very pleased to meet you
It’s a long time since we’ve seen you 
Will you drink tea on the verandah?

hot  dusty  weary 
the house  the road  the work
but in the evening -
the garden gently cooling
and the hornbill watching from the sheesham trees -
all I ask is tea on the verandah 


poem three

This is well water.
This is rain water
Boil sufficient water for us to have tea and for me to wash my hair


water drawn from the Persian well -
the buffalo toiling round and round -
tastes of dark -  the land - the soil
the sweat  - the goodness of the ground

water collected from roof or garden -
from downpour - the clouds crack open in storm -
tastes of far-off snow ranges
sky -  trees -  redemption


poem four

I was about to come yesterday
but guests arrived so I couldn’t

Guests expected, excitement
company, gossip, laughter -
forget the loneliness
forget the work
so much to tell to ask to share
so much to do
to provide for their every need

our guests are staying
days weeks on and on.
they make us poor
honour forbids we mention it
the guest is king of the castle

 

poem five

please don’t mention this to anyone

but -
heat, dust
aching legs
throbbing head
children sick
no privacy
no light, no water
mosquitos, flies
ants, weevils
the stove smokes -
feel like weeping
no phone no friend 

the servant sees me:
“the other memsahib never cried
when things were much worse” -
then I cry and cry the more
“please don’t mention this to anyone”-
he won’t -
his pride and sense of honour
restores my own, a little 

the mali appears barefooted
silently with sweet peas.


poem six

If it is permitted may I say something?
Take all your stuff and leave

Take your bedding roll and go
with all that you have taken of ours
under cover of wanting to know about Jesus -
watches, money, coffee, my hurricane lamp

It’s the lamp I miss the most

for me ‘it was a burning and shining light’
on dark nights when the child had a fever


poem seven

Please bring 2 anna stamped envelopes from the bazaar
I have to post these letters
What time does the post go?

What time does the post go? I need stamped envelopes
Whom shall I send to the bazaar on a bicycle?
Letters written ‘home’ week by week and the answer
waited for week after week but we keep each other
alive as ourselves with this flow of words 
written in tears in tiredness
in happiness and longing:
‘I wish with all my heart 
you could see my adorable baby.’


poem eight

Does the watchman stay awake all night?
As far as I know he does

He may keep awake all night but he
certainly keeps me awake all night
coughing on the verandah and smoking
hash through a hookah - 
Would he be able to save me
from whatever it is that threatens?
Yes.  Remember how he came running 
wildly waving his arms and shouting ?
I had left the sleeping baby behind
when we set off in the mission car


poem nine

I was glad to cross the ocean and reach Pakistan
To hear psalms sung in Urdu to Punjabi tunes and the beat of the tabla
the honk honk of the machine which grinds the wheat

To watch sugar cane pulped and boiled in a huge iron cauldron 
on a kiln built out in the field
camels feeding under the trees near the village
buffalos being washed in the yard which surrounds each cleanly-swept mud-house

To see people with pitchers or loads on their heads, walking or cycling
palm and mango trees
clear starlit nights
but why does ‘god’ allow the continual poverty and struggle?
I can’t endure the babies dying and still they go on being born
how brave are the women, how kind, and they laugh  
someone has brought flowers from a walk in the cool dawn



Signs of March

This full moon shines indiscriminately
on Glasgow tonight and Edinburgh 

on Arabic and Persian poets, Albanian artist,
Rwandan lady whose own radiant visage

competes with the moon, on interpreters
translators, photographers and actors

and all who work to make things work together
for good, for wine and vine-leaves filled with rice

couscous with herbs, oatcakes 
and lemon cake, iced tea and water -

Our poetry addressed the moon as curved and carved
a barque to sail the inward skies of vision

but tonight there is an eclipse of the moon, for Earth
will come between and block the rays of sun

letting the moon blaze like a blood orange
in dark of night until the shadow passes -

Our poets and the translators have now dispersed
but their words are travelling who knows whither

with old and young from diverse countries around
our turning earth as they follow their destiny -

In full countenance or in passing shade
the  radiance floats on and comes to harbour 

Indian music concert in church in Edinburgh 2007
Lalgudi Gjr. Krishanan
Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi
Somasundara Desigar

South Indian ragas played on violins
With mridangam, oval drum
O quench our thirst

Brother and sister sit for two hours
cross-legged, barefooted
flexible wrists and flying fingers
O melt our bones

Virtuoso improvisation
exchange of gifts in rhythm and sound
applause accepted with humility
O hear our prayer

‘The lesson endeth’ for tonight
on our upright chairs in this reason-
worshipping, Scottish church
O restore our sense.



SWEET AND SAD

Children of India we chattered the lingo
water and dust plants and flowers 
as verandah players
insect crawlers bird callers
with kindly people smelling of spice who
would squat at our level or carry us
swaying barefooted and cool 

Children of India 
we ran in and out with our brown-limbed friends
sat beside them on charpai or durry
yes, the chapatis slapped together
nimbly the rice juice-laden fruits 
sugary tea coconut sweets

Born as survivors siblings who died
children of India we never went back
or home or where our lives began
or travelling back we were awkward and old 
language slippage friends dispersed
emerging as pictures fuzzy ghostly
held in the mind for generations  
in sepia light of all that was passed.

Children of India we never returned 
but nor did we lose that strange
intermingled scented colourful 
wearied drenched dried-out tested
born to die by-gone gone by
tears in smiles good bye, gone, good bye.



BURDEN

Elephants of polished teak, ivory tusks,
carved by Indian mistri cross-legged in the dust,
wrapped in his chadar and carried to the station,
spread out on the platform to catch the dulled eyes
of British families travelling in May
to the hills, or returning in September
after the Monsoon… a few annas thrown.

The craftsmanship is perfect and detailed:
one elephant pulls and the other pushes
a log of teak as big as themselves.
Mighty civil servants, the leader takes the strain
and the other puts his weight behind the task.
The white man’s burden? Elephantine
to build and bridge, to heal and teach,
to manage and manufacture,
to transport and distribute.

Ships brought them to a bitter post-war Brtiain.
They settled as they could in villages and suburbs,
market towns and terraces, but on their mantelpieces
teak elephants were still and still and work.

Passed on to the children who had played with them
from house to house, the tusks now loose,
the burden was inherited along with carpets,
silver, jewelry.
			All I have is from the India
of my parents. Surrounded by it I live
far from it. Chained to the log I cannot move.