ICARUS IN REVERSE

I want to be impressive 

and say I met a mountain once,

or a pyramid, or the desert -

but the truth is the sea scares me 

and the only landscape I know 

lies beneath me; 

my bed. My panicked heart. 

I iron over my panicked heart,

flat as sheets of hair

you can buy these days, and

attach, like a doll’s accessory 

to your own bemused scalp -

whose stories have crossed rivers 

you’ll never know.

Be sure there was sadness there,

you’ll never know.

No one parts with their hair 

when it ripples freely; freedom 

was paid in the sacrifice. Who

pockets the coins of gold

in the temples of our prayers?

The first women who wrote poetry 

were nuns, some say. But the 

first woman was earth, was sea,

was fire flooding air, is still

every tree. I want to be impressive?

Why? Every tiny seed is me.

The sorrow is I forget my wings 

and falling, fail to rescue me. 

(Images: via Lucy Campbell art on instagram After Bruegel, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels)

Participating in DVerse Poets Open Link night 

PALINODE TO FLIGHT

‘New Year met me somewhat sad,

Old year leaves me tired’ - Christina Rossetti

Bird on a wire.

Bird on a tree.

I see you.

Do you see me?

Blink and I’ll miss you.

Squint and you’ll see me.

I, in a taxi, unable to drive.

You, wingèd beastie, fly. 

Fly!

Down among the chimneys,

we burn and kill each other.

Friendly slaughterhouse,

we marry and charm each other.

Trees grow down here, their 

roots our only saving grace.

Mycelium drip feeds our lungs - 

we live, we breathe; sip by sip, 

we make space. 

© Shaista Tayabali, 2025

This, an attempt at a palinode (a song of opposite ideas, or retraction of opinions) is what I wrote in the taxi on the way to the hospital yesterday for an infusion I missed on Sunday. I slept through Sunday’s infusion appointment time, still so fatigued from the weight of last year. 

In this poem, I begin with height and flight, but also shorter staccato lines, and then it takes a turn, a descent, a swoop down into the mire and murk of being human. I try towards the end to invite the idea of space, which is what birds have in abundance, and what we seem to devour with our selves, our industry and our tech. Trees, as always, save us, both reaching down and reaching up. Trees have no need for palinodes. Except when they are on fire… 

(Images : Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882)

             DVerse Poets 

TONGLEN AND YUTORI

Have you heard of the Buddhist practise called Tonglen? It's a bodhicitta meditation of taking in dark energy, difficulty or despair and breathing out light, radiating beauty. No simple task! The likes of Zen master Pema Chodron are surely better able to know the size and depth of the darkness your own particular heart can hold before attempting alchemy. But I also think this is a practise most of us do every day in some small way.

It has been a tiring year. It is now three months since Dad went into hospital with sepsis and ear infections that made his life just that bit more challenging. I mean terrifying and confusing. And, in his typical fashion, though terror and confusion, still gracious, grateful, kind and wise. Home now, and a small channel of hearing has returned to one ear. New hearing aids with high tech capabilities must be adapted to. We, I mean us three, and it seems the world beyond, live on an edge much of the time, not fully understanding why. Taking small steps, oh so infinitesimal, to hold on to that tenuous and very human thing we call faith. What is faith? What is the sacred and good in us when the big evidence of who we are points so much to the contrary? 

Have you heard of the Japanese practise of Yutori? It is the art of spaciousness, of the unhurried walk through life (rather than the harried clambering up the ladder, or across the treadmill). Do you have a spaciousness in your life? I have spent my life in houses with many rooms which I fashion into complex worlds, but also am daunted by the gathering of 'stuff'. 'Stuff' can be a treasure trove, and that can be a dangerous slippy sliding ground into a nostalgic hoarding of possessions.

It’s a weird thing to ‘still’ be living with my parents, ‘still’ be stuck in illness, ‘still’ be ‘at home’ rather than… where? Sometimes very famous and influential people say, ‘If I can help one person…’ or ‘If I have made one life better…’ but isn’t this the truth of who we really are? That each of us in our small and vital ways have made one life better, have held faith, kindness and joy, for one other life than our own? At least once a day for a parent, a child. Even, once a week, for a little curly coated dog? Even that seems beyond us sometimes, stretched as we are by historical and present day personal suffering. And still we return, represent, remember, recover. And occasionally, rejoice. So I go on, so you probably do too. I hope we’ll be alright. Times is moving us on regardless, the calendar turns to 2025. Happy New Year? From our Moominvalley to yours, may we remember what is good in each other. 

Images of Fillyjonk, and Moominmamma by Tove Jansson)

MAKING TEA (A SURVIVAL GUIDE TO WAITING)

Like Leila Chatti, I remember

the 6pm brewing of tea

for Dad, for me, 

to get through the long winter evening 

that stretched ahead

into an insomniac night. 

A bridge between two terrors. 

Sometimes it’s the hot water

bottle we are waiting for, 

to take us from shivering, 

back aching paralysis, into

a softer, more pliant acceptance 

that this is it, this is our life.

And this small pocket of heat is love.

For me, it’s dihydrocodeine - 

the friendly morphine coin

the size of a biscuit for a mouse.

Bitter, of course - 

but as miraculous, as soothing

as the hot water bottle,

the hot tea

that frees me,

moves us forward

into the day, counting the hours, 

tasting time in bitter sweet gulps - 

a friendly fire of sorts.

(There are other less pleasant waitings - 

for blindness, for death;

but we won’t speak of those,

just yet.)

© Shaista Tayabali, 2024

For the past two months I have been attending an online poetry workshop facilitated by the poet Trivarna Hariharan. Today is the shortest day of the year in this part of the world. The nights have been drawing in, foggy fingers envelop cars on the dark roads and Christmas lights are a gladdening sign. I wrote my poem using as a prompt the poem below by Leila Chatti - the poet in the very glamorous photo above!)

TEA

Five times a day, I make tea. I do this
because I like the warmth in my hands, like the feeling
of self-directed kindness. I’m not used to it—
warmth and kindness, both—so I create my own
when I can. It’s easy. You just pour
water into a kettle and turn the knob and listen
for the scream. I do this
five times a day. Sometimes, when I’m pleased,
I let out a little sound. A poet noticed this
and it made me feel I might one day
properly be loved. Because no one is here
to love me, I make tea for myself
and leave the radio playing. I must
remind myself I am here, and do so
by noticing myself: my feet are cold
inside my socks, they touch the ground, my stomach
churns, my heart stutters, in my hands I hold
a warmth I make. I come from
a people who pray five times a day
and make tea. I admire the way they do
both. How they drop to the ground
wherever they are. Drop
pine nuts and mint sprigs in a glass.
I think to care for the self
is a kind of prayer. It is a gesture
of devotion toward what is not always beloved
or believed. I do not always believe
in myself, or love myself, I am sure
there are times I am bad or gone
or lying. In another’s mouth, tea often means gossip,
but sometimes means truth. Despite
the trope, in my experience my people do not lie
for pleasure, or when they should,
even when it might be a gesture
of kindness. But they are kind. If you were
to visit, a woman would bring you
a tray of tea. At any time of day.
My people love tea so much
it was once considered a sickness. Their colonizers
tried, as with any joy, to snuff it out. They feared a love
so strong one might sell or kill their other
loves for leaves and sugar. Teaism 
sounds like a kind of faith
I’d buy into, a god I wouldn’t fear. I think now I truly believe
I wouldn’t kill anyone for love,
not even myself—most days
I can barely get out of bed. So I make tea.
I stand at the window while I wait.
My feet are cold and the radio plays its little sounds.
I do the small thing I know how to do
to care for myself. I am trying to notice joy,
which means survive. I do this all day, and then the next.

Author’s Note

This poem was the first I wrote in a long period of drought. I was, as the poem alludes to, suffering from a depressive episode, one that dislodged my language and made the simple tasks of living significantly difficult. There was one act of self-care, however, that I could bring myself to do with regularity: make tea. All day, each day, I did it; it’s true. I made the connection one day between my love of—dependency on, even—tea and the cultural role and history of tea in my Tunisian ancestry. Tea is so beloved in Tunisia that when it was under French rule, colonial administrators believed Tunisians’ tea consumption was a psychological condition, teaism, similar to alcoholism, and that the amount of tea my people drank had poisoned both their bodies and minds. I was interested in examining my own experience with my body and mind, harm and care, pleasure and survival, as it relates to tea, and this poem tumbled out of that. As a note to this note, my pantry continues to be stuffed to the brim with tea—enough to last me over a year, at least.

photo images from Carthage magazine

MESSY BOOTS AND POCKETS OF JOY

Do you recall two movies starring Kate Winslet titled 'Hideous Kinky' and 'Kinky Boots'? The first was based on a memoir by a woman whose mother cobbled together an interesting and beautiful life, off the beaten track. The second... well, it's just an intriguing sounding phrase, isn't it? Less of the hideous or kinky here, but if I were to title my cobbled together story, it would probably be Messy Boots. I mean that literally - I do sometimes forget that this is England and we have cream carpets (well, trying to stay cream) and I walk in after a good hack around the village with Samwise Gamjee, the cockapoo, and track mud here and there. 

But mostly I mean that I live like a messy snail, leaving a trail of stuff in this room and that, where I start projects of creativity or purpose, and then tumble into illness and forget. Later, I return, the good elf to my messy troll, and pick up and tidy and sort. For thirty years, I have shaped a kind of happiness and peace from this little exercise, not so much of control, as of collage, collaboration with my two selves, my several selves.

There's another book I think of now... 'How To Make An American Quilt' by Whitney Otto. The movie starring Winona Ryder and Dr. Maya Angelou, is sweet. It's all very genteel and yet emotionally true to women of any time. Ever since the pandemic made realities virtual, made the impossible possible, we the various disparately located peoples of the world, are now able to come together in a thing called Zoom Rooms... we workshop in the same space and time across geography. So house bound elves like myself, even on troll-like days, can zoom with the likes of Fatima Bhutto, Fatima Farheen Mirza, Trivarna Hariharan and Suleika Jaouad to name a few of the writers and poets I have 'hung out' with. There are writing prompts, and we write together in silence, later sharing what we wrote if we have the courage, or even, for a while, being in silence during an entire reading hour cultivated by Naomi Alderman. 

How do you hand make your life? Do you potter like I do? Are you tidy or messy? Is it childish to be messy and grown up to be tidy, or is it agelessly creative to be messy and openly vulnerable to display that you are not 'together' yet? Do you find, like I do, that there is so much to read and do, and never enough time, but that pockets of joy are in fact found in this mess of everything, everywhere, all at once? I am trying, as always, to cultivate an hour here and there to 'do something', and not be overwhelmed by how very small my doing is. 

GAZA IS A DOOR

Gaza is a door

into two worlds - 

one that keeps us alive,

and one that kills us.

We die, either way,

at the door.

Death is a door

we knock on. And then run

far away from. 

Life is a door 

we can’t remember if we chose

to walk through. 

Meanwhile, the river moves,

a running thing, 

away and towards.

Meanwhile, I,

the other living thing

standing on this bridge, 

autumn leaves in my pocket,

rain on my skin -

the tiniest of windows letting light in.

Artwork : @bypeoni Peonica Fernando

Poem featuring at dverse poets

NO MUD, NO LOTUS

One year ago, on the 15th of October, I began an online course called Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, a seven week teaching course based on the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, his Plum Village monastics and Christiana Figueres, Costa Rican diplomat, UN Chief on climate change and daughter of three time revolutionary president of Costa Rica, José Figueres Ferrer. Dad had just been brought home from hospital by ambulance a few weeks earlier after his fall, Gaza was on fire after a co-ordinated military attack provoked the world into taking sides, Mum was hospitalised with a burst cyst and I was as scattered in my life as I am now with almost the exact same circumstances - one year later.

   

People say 'war is looming in the Middle East' as if war has not been the aim, the target of US and UK military invasions across Iraq and Afghanistan. You cannot keep amputating a people's children and expect no consequences. We all pay global prices for American greed, for capitalism's dream, for patriarchal power, for religious fanaticism. So although the Zen course was only available for a year, I find myself in need of it now as much as I did then. In Week Two, Brother Pháp Dung speaks of the three energies of Artist, Meditator and Warrior, which we need to keep in balance. At the heart of the teaching is the Diamond Sutra, the cutting through of the illusion of duality, of separate selves. Non-duality, or advaita, is the nirvana of all Buddhist teaching.  An impossible feat, it seems, for the human mind to grasp. We would rather snarl and kill first, ask questions of deeper curiosity and understanding later. We act in pain, and out of pain, never having the patience to free ourselves from pain a different way, a slower way. Slowness, like illness, is an obstacle for power, for progress. As Christiana herself learned, without mud, the lotus flower cannot grow. Becoming a lotus flower takes time, and can be a painful process. As humans we seem to be in the business of avoiding pain for ourselves first. So how can the planet survive us? 

   

IN SEARCH OF DELIGHT

With every year that passes, I seem to accumulate a smaller number of blog posts. I think this is the inevitable fate of The Blog as a vehicle for our thoughts. Technology intruded in its rapid way and demanded a change - but for the writer, all the modes of transporting thought to word remain alive, however strained the thread.

It has been a very difficult two months. The beloved friend I wrote about in my last post, Victoria, would have read this post, but for her life in this human form taking flight on the 29th of August. A month later, Dad, who had been having trouble with infection in his ears, had episodes of losing consciousness, developed a high fever and was hospitalised with E.coli sepsis on the 18th of September. Here we are, at the end of the month and Pops is still in hospital. His infection markers have all returned to normal but his hearing has not. Communication has been a struggle but he is as ever graceful, remarkable and heartbreaking in the loveliest of ways. Dad, I miss you horribly. Come home soon.

In between, my brothers and Mum's brother have visited and done the supportive work that makes family continue to be family. In between, a young boy cycled up to my house and seeing a handbag unattended, stole it. This is the intersection of being human. My lapse of judgment in doing a careless yet trusting thing - oh it's a young boy I've seen many times before, cycling up to ask if he can wash our cars, I can leave my bag unattended, the front door open while I dash out to the back for... what? I cannot recall now, as I was waiting for friends to take me to Victoria's funeral. In my bag was my mobile phone - which, once upon a time, might not have impacted my life too much. But, today, our little devices hold worlds within them. 

I had a bone infusion yesterday. I picked up a cold a few days ago while at the hospital with Dad, so I feel rather heavy and my eyes feel bleak. But Dad is sitting up, practising his standing with the walker and I have hope returning for the first time that we might bring him home by the end of next week. In the meantime, I am doing the homely things of cooking meals for Mum, chicken soup for Dad, laundering clothes from hospital and watering the precious indoor plants that Mum tends to with a far greener thumb than my own. I just pat them on the head and apologise and they pat me back and say they understand. 

In the meantime, I have rewatched several old favourites... aren't movies one of the greatest reasons to stay alive, stay reminded of why we are and who we are? 'The Young Victoria' is sumptuous in its romantic portrayal of her courtship with Albert, 'Mrs Harris Goes to Paris' is delightfully Parisian in her search for the dreamiest Dior gown and 'Miss Potter', one of my most favourites... not only for its charming illustrations of Jemima Puddle-Duck and its central character being the excellently feminist Beatrix Potter, but also for the sweetest musical refrain... 

'Let me teach you how to dance,

let me lead you to the floor;

simply place your hand in mine,

and then think of nothing more.

Let the music cast its spell,

give the atmosphere a chance;

simply follow where I lead,

let me teach you how to dance.'

 

THE YEAR OF YES

I originally wrote this poem in response to turning down the opportunity to join my mother and her darling friend Victoria for a walk. I was tired. Maybe I’d recently had Rituximab. I sat in the doorway instead, waving off my friends. And soon found myself writing a poem about how I regretted saying no! These days, Victoria is the one unable to go for long walks among crunchy leaves, and the inevitable bump into a friendly soul for a catch up. Village life occurs in the entwined casual conversations that spring up on summer or autumn walks…and hospital life puts an end to those. It is a winter of sorts, a wintering of a life well lived.

                               I wish I had said Yes!

                                          beloved,

                      When you asked me out to walk

among the leaves,

the turning leaves, 

You were offering me

the sound of dreams,

And I turned you down, politely.

Not today, I smiled.

Perhaps, maybe, tomorrow?

But I wish I had said Yes!

beloved,

I wish we had shared this light.

Next time, don't ask.

Just take me!

Order me to dress!

I am going to need your help,

beloved,

To begin the Year of Yes.

 

TIME, FICKLE TIME

Firstly, with thanks to Meenakshi DCruz and Dr. Sunil Pandya for personally writing to my mother and to me to express concern for my long silent absence from my blog. Five months now, I calculate. So, in this, my birthday month, I shall attempt to redress the balance with a newsy post.

I left England for Asia at the end of March after a lot of dithering because Dad wasn’t in top condition. He intimated as much a few days before my flight, and I nearly cancelled all plans. Perhaps that might have been wise, as I proceeded to encounter a grisly case of gastroenteritis in Singapore, ending up in Tan Tok Seng hospital. Unfortunately for me, there were no beds available on the ward, so I was placed on the corridor stretcher, where I proceeded to pick up pneumonia. I didn’t know it was pneumonia, only that I had a cough, which turned more and more devious as I once again contemplated the wisdom of travelling on to Kuala Lumpur. I did go. Twin nieces awaited! And ended up in a Malaysian hospital this time. Finally, I cut my trip short by two weeks and hustled home in case my luck really ran out!!

Dad was relieved to have me home. He had a few grisly infections himself. And then summer pretended to arrive, and with it Irfan, Theresa and the kids… we celebrated Dad’s birthday and now with them gone, here is Rizwan. In between, my uncle Zubin drives to Cambridge from London when he can, to read to Dad and take over the washing up, and generally add to the support network that has been much needed since Dad fell last autumn. What is time? One moment Dad was a father to toddlers, then teenagers, and now his son is father to a teenager.

The plants need watering. Meals must be cooked. My breaking heart walks herself into the garden. My sweet Wendy House into which I have poured a silly amount of love, paint, art and happy memories, is probably in her last days before she will be dismantled and taken to the skip. Everything comes and goes. We cling on, ever hopeful, to that which we love. And we long for The Other Stuff to pass. We are as fickle with time as time is with us.

I contemplate writing. And I crawl away from the words. I face up to the brutalities of modern empires and colonising powers and I crumble at the sight and sound of tortured bodies. They buried another young journalist in Gaza, without his head. Ismail was his name. Everyone compliments me on my nails. With my mouth I say nothing - my nails say Free Palestine, from those who endanger the olive trees, the watermelon, strawberry and poppy, the fish in the sea, the kites clinging on to the hopeful fingers of the children in the Gaza Strip.