Jiya Backup

After Chemo, surgery, and radiation, my hair returning, like a silver glaze, I'm once more on the open road, traveling home from Boston. From Harvard Square to South Station, then up the twenty concrete steps to the Amtrak area - no escalator this time. I'm clumping up the concrete steps, hoisting my copper-colored suitcase, struggling with each few steps when, right on cue, as if from Central Casting, a Sikh man in lavender turban gently wafts my luggage to the landing. At the landing, I thank him with "Sat Nam." At this, his eyes brighten to a golden glow. As I move on, I feel his gaze following me. Our angels, where do they come from, and how do they know when exactly to appear?

Dear Mummy lay dying in the jungle amidst fronds, primordials, birds of paradise in robes of orange and red, flowering jasmine, hibiscus, tuberose, the waving leaves of banana trees. Dear Mummy lay dying not far from my brother, but in her own space. On the morn of her death, I tried to feed her, but she swallowed only a spoon of applesauce. A peacock slept outside her room, always on the same branch of the same tree. That morn, he strode across the threshold of her room spreading feathers of indigo and turquoise. Circling, he screeched his song and was gone. When the hospice nurse arrived, she bathed Mummy; then sweeping her back and forth in the sheets, alerted me that her last breaths were drawing near. I perched on the bed, holding Mummy, At that indelible moment, my brother appeared, grief wrinkled onto his face. For all the fury of her life, Mummy left with radiance. "Goodbye my sweetheart, my friend," I said. The peacock had also managed to say his goodbye.

I think I have many tomorrows, to play the cards I've been dealt, morrows to ride the waves, to give love I've deeply felt. But morrows may not be many, and cards may be hoarded or spent, and waves may break me asunder, and love may be borrowed or lent. I think I have many tomorrows, but the morrows may not have me, so I'll find joy in each flower, and dance with the sun and the sea.

My breasts were two, but now just one, I thought I might despair, but no, Lopsided and lovely like a pun, I look upon myself and glow. I will not wake and be the same, but am thrilled to be and thrive, my hair is short, God made her claim, most essential, I am alive.

"You can't take a tiger to a tea party," he told me. "Swear that you won't tell anyone, not even God."  I swore. It was a wild tale told that day, a tale of rescue, murder, escape, too outlandish to be true. Somehow, my son had come unhinged. Time has passed; weeks, months - It's now seven years since that day when the moon somersaulted into the light of day, and the dazzling sun climbed into bed with the night. And I have not been the same either.

I am the kiwi green of spring, I am the smile of hope lingering with the wind in treetops mingling. I am the cherry pink of spring, I am deep delight dancing beneath her bridal veil glancing. I am the dogwood rose of spring, I am uncanny kindness careening against a rosy sky preening.

Yellow, yellow, yellow, so like the sun, Forsythia, dazzling and ablaze, I open to beauty as yet unsung, Forsythia, you leave my heart a daze.