Cacophany or Epiphany

You may think of India as a tranquil place, where you might go to learn yoga, meditate, or perhaps participate in a mission trip. But, in any 'middle class' [what is that??] neighborhood in town, outside your air conditioned hotel, you would find a lot of living going on, in full color and, as likely as not, at full volume. Take this mid-morning in Guntur, a city of a million, more or less, about forty miles from the Bay of Bengal, just under the 'bump' that juts out from the center of the east coast of India.
Simply navigating what my fatherinlaw would call 'the morning needful' involves a series of interpersonal encounters which, while not unexpected, nevertheless challenge this writer's slow-wakening brain to pay attention or be left behind. Someone, thankfully my brotherinlaw, needs to turn on (and off) an outdoor pump for an hour between three and five a.m., in order to fill the rooftop tank for the day's household water supply. An hour or more of silence, before the crow of a rooster, the neighbor's motorcycle revving up, the chirp of sparrow and throb of nightingale, and the cry of the first vegetable vendor of the day are heard in the lane.
Then it's unlock the padlock on the gate, pick up newspapers ("Saakshi" ['truth'] in Telugu, "Deccan Chronicle" in English) from the sidewalk, let the moaning dog out for a morning run, open the kitchen door to let the cook in, make a cup or wait for her to make the morning chai, and be available when it is served, fill vessel to heat bathwater on the same two-burner gas stove(others might have 'geysers,' overhead water heaters, in their bathrooms), decide who will have their bucket-mug pour-bath first, confer with the cook over what to have for breakfast, make sure water is heated for the next person's bath, sort clothes for the laundry, separating those to wash personally, by hand, while in the bath, bathe, soaping and rinsing one limb at time, dress, eat breakfast which the cook has now gotten ready, notice that the 20 liter container of purified water is nearing empty and leave twenty rupees on the kitchen table for its delivery later today, send someone with clothes washed yesterday to the ironing man, who plies a giant, brass, charcoal-filled iron at his cart on the other end of the block, all the while paying attention to paired doors of the interconnected kitchen/bedroom/bathroom areas for privacy for whoever's turn it is, at whichever task.
By now it's mid-morning, and I have some time to think about the day ahead, my thoughts leaning into the surround-sound of the neighborhood. As I start writing this, I can hear rapidfire news, movie songs, a woman shrieking, all on tv in the next room where my brotherinlaw flips channels (evidently a universal male activity). My husband rolls up his grass exercise mat with a faint swish. With the rasping buzz of his idling motorcycle, a cyclist plays an echo game with a mockingbird, until the cyclist gives one long rasp and the mocking bird falls silent. The motorcycle rumbles away. A large Indian crow in the widespreading gulmohar tree shading the front gate breaks into hoarse laughter, haww, haww, haww, haww.
You can almost feel the hammers rebound as a team of carpenters pounds away at doors and windows in an apartment building under construction a few feet beyond our back compound wall. (Window and door frames are the only wooden parts of houses and walls in this city of concrete, brick and stone; even homes with air conditioning will open shutters and doors to fresh air during most or all of the day; so every little sound is amplified to some extent.) Childish voices nearby vie with their mothers' matter-of-fact tones as they negotiate the time and space between getting up and getting ready for the school bus due to putter by a few minutes later.
Each car backing out of its parking space and every cell phone has its own unique, repeating ringtone. Beeps, hums, bumbling black-canopied automobile rickshaws, fathers' motorcycles, and small yellow buses with school names emblazoned on the sides compete for ear and road space. Blue and white uniformed students, bowing under the weight of bulging book bags, walk seriously by, intent on their way to early morning tuition at the crumbling English Medium School at the near end of the block. Two college girls speed by on a smaller motorcycle, headed in the opposite direction.
Metal vessels grate against stone as the neighbor's helper washes last night's dishes in the outdoor laundry/water area in a corner of their verandah. Water splashes from the single, cold, water faucet.
At appointed times you might hear the lonely call of a muezzin from a nearby neighborhood mosque, or, during their festival, life-change, and auspicious times, the voice of a priest reciting a mantra or invoking the names of their Gods at the home altar of a Hindu neighbor. Except for a periodic rise, fall and full-stop of his voice, it evokes the atmosphere of a busily humming beehive.
Then there are the ubiquitous ceiling fans, the inevitable caller who drops in to deliver an invitation, then sit and chat, and share a cup of tea, and, today, the whoosh of the washing machine (yes, the electronics industry here is booming). At the end of the cycle, the machine spins out a cheery version of an apt and familiar hymn: "There shall be showers of blessing..."
It's easy to understand why a friend here rises at 4 a.m. in search of a quiet time for scripture and prayer, or to imagine why Jesus so frequently sought quite times and places to pray alone or with his disciples: to avoid such daily cacophony! But, as another friend said, describing the movement of people and traffic on Indian city streets, this is probably the only way you could move so many through such a limited space in a short period. Quiet time, meditation, emptying the mind and agendae: It seems like we have to do it however, wherever, whenever we can, no matter how interrupted or full our days become. It's a daily blessing to be alive, so why complain about the interruptions and noise? India is teaching, nay, requiring me to learn to say, like St. Paul, "I have learned in whatever situation I find myself, to be content."
And Amen to that!

Whatever happened to carolling parties?

This past Christmas season, a group of immigrants from India has taken the idea of traditional caroling parties to a new level.  Members of TCFMN
played the custom forward, caroling at homes of members and friends who'd invited them for designtated  nights, mid-December 2011..  Perhaps the carollers recall, as I do, groups of little boys bearing home-made stick and tissue paper stars, lustily rendering a carol or two before shouting "Meddy KristaMUSS, Happy KristaMUSS, Meddy KristaMUSS!!" and collecting donations (ostensibly for their Sunday School) throughout Christmas Eve nights, mid twentieth century, in India.  Perhaps some of the Minnesota carolers were those very little boys, later roaming their neighborhoods with friends and a loudspeaker, blaring carols from the back of a truck, now, with their young families, driving in cars around the Twin Cities to sing for others.

My husband and I knew it would be a unique experience, so we'd invited American friends and neighbors in for conversation and cider before the event.  The carollers were scheduled to come and sing at around nine p.m.  We had just warned our guests that "Indian standard time" usually meant later than planned, when an advance team arrived to check that we were ready (!). It was a good thing, too, because no sooner had we scooted our chairs and sofa to the walls, to better accommodate the group, than the carolers themselves arrived at nine p.m.on the dot.

The carolers literally burst into the room, an accordian player confidently leading the way, singers of every age pouring in, to the strains of 'O Come All Ye Faithful,' a tall boisterous Santa and a handful of timid children following them.  Johnson, the leader, strode around the group (as far as 'stride' was possible, since they and we were packed into our living dining room, knee to knee and side to side!), singing and gesturing to increase the volume and the enthusiasm.

We 'audience' laughed with delight as the carolers sang song after song with such joy and enthusiasm that outdid our imaginations' wildest interpretation of the first Christmas's angel rejoicing. Aware that the group had two other homes and dinner ahead of them that same evening, I invited them to partake of cider and treats we had waiting for them, but they chorused "We have MORE!!" and launched into carol after carol again. 

Finally there was a pause.  Santa reminded us of the original reason for the season, young Stephen read out the Christmas chapter from Luke, and his father John recalled the message, that the Christ of Christmas came for all, a visible form of God's love for the world. Then it was the littlest children's turn to shine.  Even the youngest, clinging sleepily to her father until then, brightened and ran forward to join them ato sang "We wish you a merry Christmas!!" And of course, did not have to be prompted twice to claim a cookie or too.  It was an evening to cherish.

So why am I still remembering Christmas caroling in the late January warmth of Southern India?  Perhaps it's a far stretch, but I can't help comparing it to the way Muslims and Hindus call the faithful to worship: calls of the muezzins from minarets in different neighborhoods some of the first sounds of early morning, the last of evening, float out over the town. Itinerant priests visiting homes and businesses to deliver a prayer and a blessing.  carolers in Minnesota.  entering homes to call to remembrance the one God who reigns over all, though we know and seek him by different names, but always with a song, praising God from whom all blessings flow.

May your homes be filled with faith and song, and a very happy new year, in 2012!!





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The Poetry of Thanksgiving

How would Thanksgiving read as poetry?  Would it be a paean of praise for turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and pie, or the suitably rich, gourmet equivalent of another culture, chockful of sensory experiences and satiated appetites?  A ghazal celebrating yet lamenting the surfeit of fare, the absence of love?
Would it be a witty or a call and response conversation enumerating family members passed, past, sick, or present, comparing or elaborating their exploits and relationships?
Would it be a series of aphoristic poems, each gem of family wisdom brought forth and polished up with new nuances and facets, real or imagined, in the telling by elders, along with a Greek chorus of precocious offspring?
Perhaps it would be the prose poetry of sports reporting, this league and that, illustrated in living color, or perhaps by live demonstrations in the November chill.
Toasts to teams, guests, and the cooks?
Lists of accomplishments, events and gains?
Or would it be a sonnet, contrasting his version and hers, albeit placed in a singular context, which side of the family, or side of the bed, was richer, was better, was authentic and true, eyes blind to the commonality even a reader could see?
Would the facts and rhymes evolve like Fibonacci numbers, strict in pattern yet understandable to few, reading like fractals to the rest of the crew?
Perhaps an acronym, explicating as much meaning as one could squeeze out of a name?
Would it read like the curse and the charm of the a charity kitchen, open to all and One, at once both blessed and guiltily accepted, admission and foretaste of the feast to come?
How would YOU write Thanksgiving as a poem?

What does 'prose poem' mean to you?

Heard Michael Dennis Browne today, reading and commenting on the poetry of D.H. Lawrence...that's right!
He was a great poet, much of life and death and looking at life through the perspective of creatures often
couched in spiritual terms.  In fact the program was at Plymouth Congregational Church, part of their "Literary Witness" series.  Worth the trip into town.  I hope they have more poets...

This week, prose poetry...and what is it that makes it so?  The "vibration" that MDBrown says a poem needs? A developing image or metaphor that 'stays with you'? It doesn't necessarily have the rhyme or rhythm or line structure of a more traditional poem...although I think there is definitely movement, almost breathless, and/or a grand extolling, hm?  TSmith says it's often about place...I think I hadn't heard that before writing this one in class.  What do you think makes prose poetry??

Here's a draft I wrote in class last week: 

Missing the Old Guthrie

a prose poem

by Shirley Smith Franklin

Why abandon that charming building of candy bright light, light and the various concentrated attentions of the elite, the effete, and the earnest hardworking and student come seeking salve and salvation for tired souls, excitement for energetic minds, exposed under glass to entice or distance the man or woman on the street, the messenger and the driver passing under the grasshopper bridge, the man under the freeway holding a crudely lettered cardboard sign.  Why not, retaliates the stark new building across town, hurling the names of its plays like flames against the sky; why not stage a warren of dim corridors even more complicated, dark and diverse, why not stadium seating outside a proper bar in an architectural interlude more like a giant beak, brooding over flowing dark waters.

A 'prompt-in-a-box' this week was "A List."

In My Study:  A List                                                                        October 19 and 30, 2011

The bookshelves in my study are lined with books.  Too many books.  Books I intended to read when I retire, books gathering dust while I ply the library for more, order them online, haunt used book sales. A long, low row of journals.  But, on high shelves at eye level around the room are momentos, snatches of times, ancient and modern, trinkets and toys, snippets of nature, travel echoes, family photos, well wishes from friends.

 A wooden jig toy, which fascinated me, but the working of which I never mastered, its essential, wooden ‘stage’ long lost.  Two tiny shells.  Few cells of a hive.  Small paintings by two artist friends, marble doggie from a writer friend.  Subtle hint of floral pastel, water-colored by a dear heart, faraway.

Here’s a well wish for retirement from a career that took half my life away from family and the sequestered nooks and serenity of books prettily depicted on the front of the Mary Engelbreit card. Inside, a valediction from my daughter. A golden oval beside a small, heart-shaped, red-lacquered box frames her mischievous, Mona Lisa smile in her high school photo.

Come to think of it, every shelf bears photos of my daughter: in chortling infancy, self-conscious teenage, college camaraderie, exulting in soccer, basking with her fiancée, falling back on friends. In one photo, she holds her little brother, in another they hold small flags on the day they took citizenship.  In yet another, she embraces me and my mother; this picture next to one of a more fortunate friend studying her own mother who lived, joyfully alert, til one hundred.   Here’s an earlier photo of my own mother, recently widowed, smiling ruefully before a window reflecting Lake Minnewaska on which our house stood.  In a silver frame, my Finnish grandparents; grandfather,  straiaght and tall in his worsted suit, hat in hand, stands beside my beaming grandmother, who wears a brooch at the collar of her best black dress.  The photo was taken on the occasion of their first grandson’s baptism.

Here, a framed magazine photo, one of the ingenious ways my mother brought art into my childhood home.  A postcard of the big blue marble, A snap with our son in front of the Louvre, capturing his boyish delight in Paris;  his childish handiwork:  a stick-and-yarn eye-of-God.  A pale blue music box that still plays ‘The Washerwomen of Venice,” harking back to my other grandmother, “Gramma-on-the-farm.”

A red-dyed, wooden, Swedish, no-nonsense nutcracker.  Cross-stitched red and green, tasseled gew-gaw of Hmong handiwork, teal-dyed box of Polish handiwork, brimming with beads for a grand-daughter’s dress-up-and-play.  The granddaughter’s first kindergarten painting:  modernist sunshine bursting with life (she tells me it’s ‘just a design.’), waiting to be framed.  A tiny turquoise dancing doll from India.

And a worn but still workable, wind-up Cinderella, the clockwork hidden under her ballroom skirt still able to propel her along predetermined lines and circles.  The prince who was once attached has broken off, leaving her scarred hands spread wide as though extending an invitation.  Each of these memories is an invitation.  The memories invite me to write them down, let the pen or the keyboard dance, in the study.       

Hello Haiku

Whew, I'm finally back to the blog, trying to limit it to my themes of India and/or the writing life.  Taking a poetry class with Thomas R. Smith.  Great fun.  Reviewing a form a week, authors of the same, examples of their work and signs of their times; practicing writing, sharing our own.  Last week:  Haiku.  Three lines, of 5-7-5 syllables, respectively.  Or less.  Here are a couple of my own:

Two or Three Haiku
by Shirley Smith Franklin

Haiku
Habit forming.                    (p.s., It really is! Like eating popcorn...it's hard to stop!)

         ~
Dusk in the forest.
Out of gathering silence
An owl calls my name.

         ~
Why all these
Miss-understandings?                       (spelling, sic)
Why not Mister?
          ~  

Favorites

"I see you're a fan of Robert Frost," he said, as I concluded reading a sheaf
of my poems for our writers' group.

Actually, I'm not.  Neither is my favorite writing role poet, memoirist, playwright,
or novelist, though these are all genre in which I write.

The 'favorites' question has perplexed me since childhood.  The question
implies a demand for an unambiguous answer.  Decisions are hard for me.
Today I may wear turquoise, red,  or gray.  It all depends, upon what will go
together with what I wore yesterday into the next load of laundry, whether
the sun is shining or not, and/or the available options of clothing appropriate
for the company and situations in which the day's activities will take place.
So what is the point of stating a preference, anyway, when, in lieu of reasons
to the contrary, that preference is open to change and any number of
influences. 

Oh, I have preferences of type.  I will read memoirs and period or culture-
specific writings, both sacred and secular, as opposed to murder mysteries
and science fiction.  But that's just me.  I may indeed read any or all of these,
given a fondness for the author, historical basis, experiential affinity, or highly
recommended quality of writing.

I like deep male voices, sunny days, happy colors, little children, new
friends, learning new things.  I like sound sleep, good writing, smooth or
grand music, talking with a friend.  I like the feel of a book in hand, the
softness of a rose petal, and butter, potatoes.  (Oh, you've caught me there,
potato is far and away my favorite vegetable.)

Every inventory in view of the favorites question brings me to the same
conclusion. While I don't have much to say about favorite anything, I do
tend to pay attention to the ordinary.  In that way, I think like Robert Frost.
But I am not a fan.