I: Summer at the Oculus

I: Summer at the Oculus

It’s the last day of summer
autumn equinox will greet us
with a new season tomorrow.

And we walk …

me and my mystic sister
the South-Indian, Carnatic
singer /storyteller.

Grasshoppers chant
their electric songs
and I am entranced.

Miniature daisies wave to me
tell me I’m home.

Red sumac dangles
a crimson temptation
asking to be made into a brew
of delicious, tangy, ruby tea.

We walk …

And I find my people
in a plant that my singer-sister hands me –

when I touch it, the tendrils recoil
it’s called Touch-Me-Not, she says
I understand. Nod silently.

As we walk towards the Oculus
a mythology of concrete architecture
unfolds itself like an origami folktale:

A circular portal, a travelling sundial
a nomadic wanderer who shifts
its perspective as the day passes
a migrant who relocates, changes shape
according to the seasonal dictates.

Seven columns represent seven generations
pillars that taunt our linear minds in defiance, shake us
lose from our addiction to meaning and control –
symmetrical patterns hold their secrets close.

The moment we think we understand
the oculus shifts – alluding our left-brain insistence
the space unfolds, unpacking its meaning inside us – offering
solace, like medicine, offering sound and reverberation and always
an escape – into the sky above us all.

Inside the oculus my sister /singer unfurls into song
her voice caresses the curve of cement, the sound
a celestial escape into a beauty of euphony
exquisite, elevated, ethereal gift
so precious, so unexpected –

that I am lost in it
submerged, transported, transformed –
and comforted.

God resounds all around us now, her voice
is ripe and rich with exaltation, with transcendence
and grace and halleluiah
and amen –

From "If We Were All Rivers" by Andrea Thompson
Commissioned by Urbanvessel for riverMOUTH
Vocals: Sharada Eswar
Song: Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo
Written by: Fayyaz Hashmi
Composer: Sohail Rana
Raga: Yaman Kalyan