Songs/Poems

What happens?

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / Leave a comment

What happens to girls is this:

First we bleed, we bud, we bloom.

We become some thing that attracts attention.

We become boobs, butt, legs, body.

We become an opening to be filled.

We become woman.

This is what happens.

 

What happens to boys is this:

First you look, you lust, you lunge.

You learn to take what you want without asking.

You learn to stalk, to hunt, to trap.

You learn to kill for pleasure.

You learn to be man.

This is what happens.

 

Then the sky fills with poison gas.

Then the mountains consume themselves in flame.

Then there is nothing but  vultures circling.

And the dust settling

on what we were meant to be.

More than woman. More than man.

Curse these forsaken forms.

This is what happens

to us all.

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NaPoWriMo 2013: Day 1

 

Asha’s Sisters

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / 3 Comments

Felissa was the first of the three. She lived a million miles away  in California. Melissa came later. We will have a playdate with her one day. Jafortu was the last, named after the label  J42 on the back of a plate, no story.

“Felissa is visiting her grandmother!”

“Melissa was mean to me in school.”

“Jafortu likes mac n cheese just like me. ”

The sisters were always nearby but never quite here.For six months, stories of their likes, dislikes, comings and goings, speckled her 4 year old chatter.

Then last week:

“My sister’s are dead.”

“Oh no!.  I am so sorry.  That is sad.”

“It’s OK.  Blankie, Puppy, and Other Asha are my sister’s now.”

A woven blanket. A small stuffed dog. A brown skinned, black haired puppet. Holdable, huggable, here.

THE SISTERS ARE DEAD!

LONG LIVE THE SISTERS!

 

 

 

Nightmares I remember

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / Leave a comment

giant octopus

Age 4:

I am at school. It is empty in my classroom.  I walk through the long halls out to where the playground should be.  Instead there is a forest.  I see the kids and teachers hiding in the trees. I know what they are hiding from. I climb a tall oak tree with huge branches.  I hear a sound like a huge dream beating.  An enormous egg shaped purple dinosaur monster approaches me.  It says,”‘I will eat you and everyone here.  If you don’t want me to eat you, go get me some ice cream.”  I run inside the building.  I search and search and search. I find the ice cream in an old canvas magazine rack.  I carry the cold tub of Breyers chocolate out to the backyard forest.  The monster is gone.  The kids are gone. The teachers are gone.  I stand alone with the ice cream as it begins to melt. I am hungry, and it is my favorite flavor, but I will not eat it.   My stomach churns. Did I save everyone? Did I save no one? Did I save myself?

Age 16:

The sun glares off of the sand dunes.  I feel the power of the dark horse beneath me. My hair is whipped by the wind. My robes flap and flail behind me.  My people ride behind me with urgency.  We must return quickly for the ceremony.  I arrive at the longhouse.  There is trouble, famine,  war approaches. I am the clan leader. The high priest tells me that it is time.  We walk out to the side of the building.  A long iron rod sits in a bed of hot coals.  The starshaped brand will mark me forever. I I raise my bare right foot. He places the brand against my sole. I do not cry. This is the only thing I can do.

Age 23:

I stand on a sun-drenched hillside.  The bright green grass blows lazily in the breeze. There are dozens of children around me giggling joyously, at play.  A gray cloud moves across the sun and the breeze turns cold.  Over the hill crest, I notice water rising.  A bulbous form the size of a hot air balloon emerges.  The tentacles reach toward me – so many I can’t count them. They grab small bodies, lifting them into the air, squeezing them.  I fight one arm at a time. I can do it.  I free one child, and the now empty arm seeks out and plucks another child.  This will never end.

Age 36:

I sit in the driver’s seat of my old four door silver Honda civic.  My husband, my two children, my parents, my grandparents and all my kin by blood and by spirit, sit in the car with me.  I am excited to take this journey with them all.  We are taking a vacation to Ocean City, M.D.  I pull onto the bridge that crosses over the water.  I can smell the salt air,  feel the summer heat on my skin.  The radio is playing “Miss Independent” .  Then, right in front of me,  a silent wall of water, 10 stories high, appears before me.  Above me, the arching water touches the blue sky where seagulls soar.  In the car, we are all silent.  There are no words

2013: Beyond Apocalypse

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / Leave a comment

All the prophecies said end days. Which means, this is the beginning.  2013 will be the first year of my life.
This is the beginning.

I have never been here before. Never known this me. Never seen her dance on this New Years Eve, heart sore from loss, yearning, grabbing, getting, all the stretching of self that happened in 2012.

I have never been here before. Never fought this battle, never pulled up my boots and said,  “I will beat back the rising tides, I will find ways to end war, I will take on the impossible tasks: stable climate, peaceful humans, healthy world.”

This is the beginning.

I have never been this before. Shaper of humans. Child grower.  Safe harbor.  The one who holds tight while she lets go.  Home Maker.  Goddess.

This is the beginning.

For many people, apocalypse came in 2012 as predicted.
Hellfire. Plagues. Evil darkening the skies. Shattered world.
A moment of silence for all who suffered.

Now break the silence. Shake the mountains. Tear the skies
With your voice. With your spirit. With your ever rising souls.
Break through this apocalypse. The new world wants you.
To come.
Build.
The Beyond.

Dear Justice

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / 1 Comment

He loves him.

Never apart. Never without

the tickle of whiskers, the feel of fingers, the  

coffee breath pontificating

the warmth of forever embers glowing.

He loves him.

She loves her.

Once eyes locked.

Heat rose.

Something inside her went click.

That was it.

The moon never leaves the earth.

She loves her.

He loves him. She loves her. He loves him. She loves her.

She loves her. He loves him.

Please. Open. Your. Eyes.

Sincerely,

We, The People

We voted

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We voted for the Dreamers, and the Same-sex lovers, and the 99%. We voted for the unions, and the aging baby boomers, and the guy on the street who sleeps on vents. We voted for shattered glass, and equal pay. We voted for ourselves.

We voted because they thought we wouldn’t, and because we knew we had to. We voted because our bodies were being debated and our voices were being ignored. We voted so teachers can teach and students can learn. We voted to take care of each other.  We voted to be able to take care of ourselves.

We voted for soldiers to begin the healing. We voted for roads, and bridges, and pipes.

We voted because the lines were long and our patience was running short. We voted in waves of gold, and brown, and  pink until day turned to night.  We voted after polls were closed.

We voted because we know there are more superstorms to come. 

We voted in fear. We voted in hope. 

We voted. We voted. We voted.

 

 

Peace Tree

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / Leave a comment


I spent the morning
in the Peace Room at the Friends Center.
It sits in the light on the 3rd Floor.
Later that day I walked down
to the lower level, no windows.
The Justice Room is down there
I thought, “I wonder… why?”
“Why is the Justice Room below the Peace Room?”
“Is justice the roots sunk deep
from which the peace trees rise?”

Skin deep

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / 6 Comments

I am driving the minivan. My four year old daughter is behind me, strapped into her booster seat. A purple balloon rises up from her wrist, a bottle filled with candy in her lap, her eyes still wet from goodbye tears, her voice twittering with excitement, exhaustion, and complete satisfaction.  We are on our way home from her “best friend”s 5th birthday at Pump it up.

A: “Kensington is my best friend mommy!”

Me:  “I know. You told me!”

I love talking to her when she is like this.  This time in the car becomes more special every day, now that I am working full time – now that she spends long days at her suburban pre-school.

A: “Kensington is 5 mommy! I am 4. But she’s my best friend! She’s in my heart.”

I melt when she says these things. What words will her 4 year old brain spin out next?  I ask a question, waiting to be dazzled or amused, to be impressed with her smarts, or chuckle at her silliness.

Me: “Why is she your best friend sweetness?”

A: “Because she has the same skin color as me. Can I have this candy tomorrow?”

My voice catches in my throat.  My brain goes blank.

Me: “Uh huh.”

Should I say something more?  Is it ok that she is choosing best friends based on skin color?  She has moved on to talking about The Wiggles, and something about flying to Mars with her baby doll.  But I am stuck. Skipping like a record.

Of course, I had noticed at the party. Asha and Kensington were the only non White-skinned kids there who were not members of Kensington’s family.  Both of them a golden brown tone, children of mixed parentage. Kensington’s mother African American, her father Latino.  They both played with the other kids of course. They did not band together, or isolate themselves. They did not self-segregate.

This moment is pregnant.  It has meaning for me.  We are moving to Philadelphia, exploring neighborhoods, trying them on for size, one a weekend,  our little family of four, one White, one Brown, two Golden.

Who do we belong with?  Where  do we fit? On a busy street in one neighborhood, I am the only brown skinned person I see the whole afternoon, except for the Parking attendant.  We are strangers to this town but does that mean we should feel strange?

I feel strange when I am the only brown person in the room. It’s no one’s fault. No one has to be doing something wrong. I just feel strange.  I search the room for another brown skinned person. I have done this for as long as I can remember. Then I know I am safe. I am not so strange.

Now, I know my golden-skinned girl child feels something like this too. I thank goodness for my question and her answer. I thank goodness for these moments in the car – these windows, these mirrors. I am certain now, I must find a someplace where we fit. I must find a place we all can be. Perhaps strangers together, but together, never strange.

I ride the Regional Rail

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I ride the Regional Rail to work and back again, from outside to in, Center City to Marcus Hook, where the oil refinery shoots plumes of orange flame and the ladies at the diner call me hon. I watch the signs – Eddystone, Crum Lyn, “The Gas Light”.  A worn billboard, paint curled, letters faded, stands tall midway. I can just make out the hopeful plug:

“Visit our suburban city, and see what’s new in Glenolden!”

The first time I saw it, I laughed.  But the joke is too old, and too sad to be funny.  The lost luster of the suburban dream reminds me that I am not as young as I used to be.

I ride the Regional Rail from my hometown, seeing it with my 36 years old, consciousness-raised, social-science eyes.  The Chester Transportation Center speaks its truth to me.  Promises broken,  people unmade, climbing too many stairs just to wait for a train to somewhere else. University City still ten stops away.

I ride the Regional Rail to work, from outside to in,  Marcus Hook to Center City, where the fountain at LOVE park shoots plumes of purple water and the lady at the chinese food truck knows I need more hot sauce.  The sky scrapers rise up, the murals sing praise songs, and I am young once again. My pulse quickens with the beating heart of the city until it’s time to ride the Rail again.

 

 

 

I drew two pictures

/ Aarati Kasturirangan / 1 Comment

I drew two pictures, just like the book suggested.  I was home alone, beads of sweat pooling in the crease between my thighs and the swell of my baby-filled belly.   The crayola box was covered in a thin layer of  dust.  I selected brown and red and peach and yellow, blue and gold and pink.  I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply.

Fear: I drew a dark, windowless room. I drew myself lying on a bed. My big, brown bulging form was strapped down by black wires and cords. I drew two women near me and colored their  faces peach and gave them long blond hair.  I drew word bubbles rising from their mouths. “#*?! ”  they shouted.  On my right calf muscle I drew a large red X.

Hope:  I drew myself sitting up in bed and my husband Jon next to me.  I drew a brown-skinned woman smiling nearby.  I drew a river flowing out from between my legs and a small brown baby floating atop.  In the air above the baby, I drew a star.

A few weeks later:  I sat up on a delivery room bed at Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago and  pushed.  The room was bright.   I closed my eyes and went inside myself.  I sensed the people in the room: my husband, my blond nurse, and my friend Sandhya.  My right leg spasmed and I shouted incoherent commands to this team of supporters. “You!”  I pointed frantically towards no one with my eyes closed. “Rub my leg! Up! No, down!  Left. More left.  No. Outside!!”  I felt hands on my leg, easing the cramp into a dull ache.

The nurse’s voice warned me of the next coming wave.  “Focus on your bottom!” Words you only hear in a delivery room or at the gym.  I breathed in deeply, standing somewhere inside myself in the dark, wondering who this child would be. “Do you want to feel the head?”  I reached down between my legs and felt a patch of hard skull covered by soft hair no bigger than a quarter. I wondered why my baby’s head was so very tiny.  I imagined I was pushing out a small doll. It seemed very doable.

The doctor appeared between my legs.  “Hi Aarati, I am Dr. Starr. Your baby is almost here.  Let’s get another good push.” I pushed my soul against hers, willing her into the world. I felt a sudden gush, a rush, and thrust myself against myself. “Wow! That’s a lot of water! Here she comes!”

Asha. Hope.  Kimberly. From the meadow of the royal forest.  The hope from the meadow of the royal forest was born.  All hail brown-skinned, all hail pink-skinned.  Born on water and under a star.  She is here, she is here, she is here!