Poetry then is not just a high beam - shining on great truths and insights, but it is like everyday chores, I have to keep writing and writing . But it is hard. Sometimes I feel I lead such a limited life. I am a boring housewife who does nothing earth-shaking. It is funny, if my friend were to come and complain about feeling down and depressed about her life, I will have so many things to say about how fantastic her life was. I need to really go to an expert and learn something. Krishna and I are learning how to swim from Phoebe. She is like a big, cheerful, chatty, water- angel who makes the deep seem shallow and swimming as natural as walking. As far as I am concerned Phoebe walks on water. Just breathe properly - that's all. Water reminds you of how much you need the air- this air we take for granted. We get up in the morning look at the new day out there and at night we perhaps look at the copper-tinged moon not yet a perfect round, but all the while 24-7 we are taking in air and breathing out air, ceaselessly, as we talk and talk. And then we enter the pool and we suddenly respect this ceaseless activity. We go under the blue and we hold our breath and then we give out the bubbles and then come up to take in some more. "It is all in the breathing' says Phoebe, all in the breathing I whisper in my heart. Our hands an legs are fins and we suddenly learn to love this element this splashing, cleansing, slapping, shining, life-giving wonderful element that rains from above and seeps into the grass and the earth. I am reminded of another analogy. In India, a girl is always brought up with lessons on how to be a future daughter-in-law. I know how it is when one's own parents are missed so much and then it is another family that becomes our own. The air is your mother's house and the water is like your in-law family. Initially, it is hard but slowly, your allegiance is transferred and you take to your role, you become proud of being a daughter-in-law of the family.
Yes, there is poetry in swimming too, in the bliss that is there in floating, belly up and looking at the blue sky smiling down on you like some familiar face.
My rant on the inability to keep writing poetry every day. I am supposed to have this fantastic muse inside me but i don't. How do I write?
