Crabbit Old Woman

"Crabbit Old Woman" By: Phyllis McCormack

What do you see, nurse, what do you see?

What are you thinking, when you look at me-

A crabbit old woman, not very wise,

Uncertain of habit, with far-away eyes,

Who dribbles her food and makes no reply

When you say in a loud voice, I do wish you'd try.

Who seems not to notice the things that you do

And forever is losing a stocking or shoe.

Who, unresisting or not; lets you do as you will

With bathing and feeding the long day is fill.

Is that what you're thinking, Is that what you see?

Then open your eyes, nurse, you're looking at me.      

I'll tell you who I am as I sit here so still!

As I rise at your bidding, as I eat at your will.

I'm a small child of 10 with a father and mother,

Brothers and sisters, who loved one another-

A young girl of 16 with wings on her feet,

Dreaming that soon now a lover she'll meet,

A bride soon at 20 - my heart gives a leap,

Recalling the vows that I promised to keep.

At 25 now I have young of my own

Who need me to build a secure happy home;

A woman of 30, my young now grow fast,

Bound to each other with ties that should last;

At 40, my young sons have grown and are gone,

But my man is beside me to see I don't mourn;          

                           

At 50 once more babies play around my knee,

Again we know children, my loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead,

I look at the future, I shudder with dread,

For my young are all rearing young ones of their own.

And I think of the years and the love that I've known;

I'm an old woman now and nature is cruel-

Tis her jest to make old age look like a fool.

The body is crumbled, grace and vigor depart,

There is now a stone where I once had a heart,

But inside this old carcass, a young girl still dwells,

And now and again my battered heart swells,

I remember the joy, I remember the pain,

And I'm loving and living life over again.

I think of the years all too few- gone too fast.

And accept the stark fact that nothing can last-

So open your eyes, nurse, open and see,

Not a crabbit old woman, look closer-

See Me.

 Crabbit Old Woman is a poem written in 1966 by Phyllis McCormack, then working as a nurse in Sunnyside Hospital, Montrose. The poem is written in the voice of an old woman in a nursing home who is reflecting upon her life. Crabbit isScots for "bad-tempered" or "grumpy".

A writer’s Random

A writer’s random :Thoughts

A small bud somewhere in a hidden garden emerges from slumber, in the quest to bloom. When it is still a sapling, still too tender to climb up on its own, it seeks support. And the climber sapling spreads its hands and feet in search of that invisible stick that will lead it to greater heights. Like a blind person the fragile green grabs hold of anything that comes in its way and commences its pursuit. The baby bud has now started to open up. At the pinnacle, it blooms into a beautiful white flower with fragrance that invites the buzzing bees to lick up the sweet nectar from its belly.

A night, dark and dense, holds in itself the secrets unknown. A new moon might be even more mysterious. Unknown where the next step would fall, a traveler passes through a forest. The sound of a cricket echoes from everywhere. The dry leaves beneath her feet grumble in some strange sound. Pitch darkness and nowhere to go. A wolf moans somewhere far away. The jungle is awake even in the slumber of the night. “Where to look for the way?” She asks herself and looks up for the heavenly help. A smile dawns upon her face like the morning sun. The sky glitters with the tiny diamonds and one among them the brightest, to the North pointing her where to go. The help is granted and she is obliged.

                                                                       

He waits for her patiently, but she doesn’t turn up. He waits again, impatiently, she still doesn’t. It aches somewhere deep in his chest, but he won’t shed the pain, he carries it. She comes up and says something extraneous, irrelevant. He is just happy to listen, happy to see the curve on her lips stretch into a beautiful smile, happy to wait to just see that smile sit gracefully on her face. The wait is over yet it remains forever, indefinitely. There is some beauty in uncertainty, the rest is fear.

                                                                       

                                                                    A tiger strays in the wild. Hungry and blood thirsty it looks around for its prey. The big bulging predator eyes are in a search. No it is not its killing instinct; it is its growling stomach that demands for food. A fawn jumps around his mother’s hind legs playfully, knowing little of what is going to happen next. The tiger crouches behind the tall grass, its sharp eyes fixed upon the little life. A swift plunge on the prey, without giving even a warning such are the skills of this hunter. Without a daunt, it leaps and in one go grabs the fawn like a timid toy. Its jaws strangulate its neck with each passing second and the life that was still left inside struggles to get loose. The heavens cries as the mother sees her child getting ripped apart while the blood satiates somebody’s thirst and the flesh fills its stomach. The dust settles down and the red waters take away what is to be given back to the mother earth.

The inception of life, the deeds or karma, the hope in survival and reparation after destruction that’s all this is, we and everything around us.

Freedom From All

Waiting behind the silhouette of days

Passing each with a silence on tongue,

That the soul lying within denies,

Struggling and eager to dance and sing

What reclaim did happen alas

That world being free has cut its wings

And so it slithers under the ground

Hoping to sprout when the spring begins

Dense smoke suffocates and blurs

The similar paths it had walked before

And now that the time has changed again

Nothing but air can be gripped and bore

Peeling the scars that have dried and shred

The new skin beneath though fresh and pure

Darkens with the tans of time

That nowhere seems to aid and cure

With the bodily flesh and a beating heart

The cluster of nerves tangled in art

The intellectual self resting in skull

Can all this sustain within a soul so dull?

Thus it peeps, sometimes looks too far

In search of the final call

May be freedom from the fearsome fall

That has ruined it once and for all

And the Sun shone again

The sunshine bore outside the window, twinkling like gold against the grey clouds. It seemed as if heaven had descended upon earth after a long time. I wanted to go out, endure it, and feel the warmth on my skin. Before I could complete the surreal thoughts, somebody put down the curtains.

Something had shaken within me. I knew not but there was a disturbance, more like a ripple.

The sun dimmed its strength, hid somewhere behind the clouds. The golden light slowly faded. The white artificial light above my cubicle shone brighter now.

The mind drifted again and this time to the room where I was few minutes back.

“Where do you see yourself after seven years?” the question lingered on in my mind for some more time.

It was a simple question from one of our trainers in office but somehow the past and present lay naked before me as a question mark. What have I achieved till now? What has become of me? Was it what I wanted to be? Was it how I saw myself 5 years back? As if a tong was vibrating inside like a siren, an alarm system telling me that it is high time now, decide your path, decide your goals.

I was still aimless like a hollow log and I walked with a blurred vision. I wanted somebody to guide me and was in a thought that somebody would eventually pop up and show me the way. But nothing of that sort seemed to happen. I was stuck, restricted with my own mist of thoughts.

The sun shone again, across the clouds, cutting through the corners of the curtains. Its rays were now peeking through the gaps rather it forced through the crevices in between two curtains. It had made its pass through and now shone into the room with all its glory. The light just over my head shone in shame before the gold glow.

I took a long breath and suddenly my mind got cleared of all doubts and clarity settled in. The literal space had impact on my mind, deep within, from veins to nerves. I wanted to relive it, push through the crevices a little hard. May be a tone brighter, that was all it required, I required.

I saw the sun shine with all its might and I went out to live the moment.    

Yeah! The Same Four Years Folklore

I knew not what bound us together, despite all odds including those quarrels, perspective differences and long term fights. Insults and sarcasms being the part of daily talks, didn’t bother us much, after all we belonged to the same side of coin. Yet whenever we thought it was the last of times we would be together, it suddenly turned out that both of us had an invisible elastic rope tied between us. The farther we stretched, the closer we would get when it pulled us back. The four years of troughs and crests laid a cemented foundation that neither of us knew would stiffen with time. And as my parents say, “There is a reason why people enter your life and leave when the purpose is done.” Some reasons surely turned out well as time passed yet I believe it’s a lot more than fulfilling a purpose or supporting a reason. It is more about building an unbreakable kinship and I guess there is no exit made to it yet.

This journey, yea the same four years, going through the best and the worst together, if not then at least equally would be righteous to say it. Standing for each other and even against each other at times was a part of this traversal. From making the worst foes to shifting with the best friends, we are finally static.

For someone who knows all your weaknesses, it is dangerous to stand face to face with that someone but it is equally amazing to know how much that person loves you and cares for you despite knowing you all. Whether it was strangulating each other with respective weaknesses or lifting the spirits up to bring out the best in the other, we never stood back in any of these deeds. It turned out to be a raw friendship, more of natural and intense in all aspects. From ringing the bells of anger and skeptics in our parents to making them proud and content, we did it all, yet again together.  Sometimes it makes me laugh when I think of all the mischievous deeds we enacted, and got screwed. But isn't there the most of fun in doing what is forbidden?

I wish I could make a movie out of the golden years that just passed by and watch it over and over again. I wish that the time that is yet to come brings with it more of such lively moments and unforgettable times. And since this fable of ours hasn't ended yet, I wish to write more, about us, about our ‘deeds-done-together’ as we move ahead in time and create beautiful memories.




Yea, Thats real blood guys, don't freak out, just one of the crazy stuffs we did..:P ;)

The 'U' Turn

Globe trotters, the van reads from behind. Petit pupils in single bright colored attires sit beside each other compactly. A pair is into game with no rules, no equipments, and just four hands clapping each other repeatedly. Chattering and laughing follows unceasingly. I look at the school van from my office cab.

                                 The transformation in time is clearly visible, the difference being that I sit in a vehicle where even the engine feels guilty of roaring out too loud. People look out of their windows contemplating over the possibilities and the impossible of their made up life. Some carry expressionless faces while others have their eyes closed shut under the weights of their inadequate sleeps.

The van and the cab each have their own destinations. One is jingling with joy and the other just trying hard to reach where it is supposed to. Passing across the traffic signals seems like counting the minutes of delay to reach the place of work. The cab zooms across the minutest space available to drop its passengers on right time. Meanwhile the van cheers up, as the road swells. Seems none of the little travelers get bothered by that.

As the end of the day, what workers get is money while globe trotters gain knowledge, and something else which they don’t realize but former do.   You always tend to notice more of what you don’t have rather than what you have got.

The traffic is at its peak in the morning hours. There is a mini race at the U-turn between the traffic coming and the one cutting a U. Horns blare all over the road. People click their tongues and make sounds of frustrations creeping in their heads as the time runs ahead of their pace. Everyone wants to rush forth together where the space is only for few. Vehicles vibrate with power, the sleek ones making their way out somehow.

Here the road diverges, the van takes a soft turn while the cab rushes ahead reaching 60 in one go, horns following its every move.

It is sad and happy both that the little pupils don’t know what they are heading towards, only the time does and now even I do.

               

IMPRINTS of Time

                                                              IMPRINTS of Time

      Sometimes I see shadows

Playing somewhere in a corner            

Sometimes I hear voices,

    The pitch too high

           Sometimes flashes of memoirs blur the reality

     And I sneak-peak back into past

       I smile, happily, joyously to myself

             I realize that a bag full and heavy I have restored

              From the very best moments of my life

            Decorated with glitters of laughter, sparkles of strives

           A pinch of even those tears shimmer in it

Balloons full of love and life, hate bait sarcasms, craziness and insanity

   In unison with the fun filled fights

And up and up they have flown

   Over many many moons of time

Sometimes I come to this place,

Where a film roles before me

And I watch it keenly,

              All the magic moments again and again and again

        Sometimes the places around me become alive

           And I see outlines of people moving, talking, laughing

  It for once forces me to believe,

         To believe that there is a little bunch of insanes

Until I see myself among them,

                Churning the sweetness out of life and breathing it in deeply and merrily

      I see myself riding over the stallion

            And winning every game with pals along side

  I see shields hard for any power of world outside

  Soft and mild at my end

                Dusted with time and eroded by that very world

               I find those spots worthless, dim and dejected

                 What remains is fossilized time and deeply buried nostalgia

    Of that I am the owner and the treasurer

      These instances as they passed,

       Jeopardized me with their very ends

         But as I stand at the brim today

          I satisfy my fears with just one line-

       “Nothing could have been better”

        I drank from the chalice of life

         And sprang from my very own ashes

       The journey moves forth,

                  

But sometimes just sometimes

I see shadows playing somewhere in a corner

                  

Sometimes I hear voices, the pitch too high

                   And with a sneak-peak back into past

    I smile happily, joyously to myself.

     

Because Men will be Men

Because Men will be Men..

“Bs karr yar,  kitna ghurega (enough dude, how long will you stare)”, I asked my friend who had made an angle of almost 180 degrees hinging his neck from one side to other. Being a girl, I had to accept, that be it my own friend or just any stranger plus be it male, he is bound to gawk the she-species. This fact, I anticipate, every human, seems to accept. Some take it as stalking, while some enjoy the attention. Hearing from our own brothers, we were bestowed with the knowledge, that guys notice people or females (to be more precise), far more properly. I had a doubt, and thus came up with a question to my own cousin.

          

   “When is it that you find that a girl is hot? When she is coming or when she is going?”

The question made him turn pink as I gave him an innocent yet sarcastic gaze. Never mind that question dear all, curiosity is good as they say. And hey after all that you must be wondering I got my answer or not.

Negative.

 But instead I once found one of my he-friends saying,

“Yar piche se hot lagti hai aage se nai (she looks hot from behind not from front).”  I had no thoughts left after this, but was just in contemplation what he might have thought before saying so.

There were times when I heard about guys in our college ranking the girls from 1-to- 10 or more like who is hotter, on a self made webpage. When I questioned one among them, the reply came like hey I gave you more points than her, be happy!  Sad that we had a phone conversation, else my heels would have been over his head, literally.

 Surprisingly you get apps for that now on your smart-phones. And even more surprising 

was when I came to know that Mark Zuckerberg made a threshold to his discovery with the same idea. I was moved!

And thus we, I and my female-friend made a counter move. Sitting at the most happening place in our college, we would rank guys.

       Eager to know what we looked at while ranking?  Nothing much, except the way they walked, the way they talked, what color shirt they wore, what footwear they wore, their nails, especially toe nails, their hairstyle, their accessories, their way of sitting, standing, staring others and many more things. We would both laugh, pass comments, categorize them, pester them, yes we did so and only we know how much fun it was when they gave back an annoying look.

So if gaping is a self right, why should boys have all the fun. If you stalk others, you should be ready to get stalked by others.

  ..“ Beta! Mann mei laddoo foota?” .. 

Fact 1: Which guy on earth wouldn’t want a girl to stalk him?!   Universal truth!

Fact 2: Guys will be guys, no matter what age they are.

How many eyes could you fork out even if it was legally allowed? No living-man would be left with a vision, if that was righteous. Blame it on the testosterone levels or call it a natural complexity, but you got to accept the fact.

So there came a time in times when,

Me: “Yar I will give Him 8.5.”

My he-friend:”Why? He is good, deserves better.”

Me:” Nah, He is slouching while walking and look at His jeans, as if dying to fall down!” , “Never mind, look! I will give Her 7.5. You tell.”

My friend: “Ruk ja, pehle jaane to de use, tb btata hu( wait , let her keep going, then I ll tell.”

      Men will be Men..

DEAR MOM

These words are mere alphabets of a language if they don’t ever mention you as an element of my thoughts. I have always been a part of you, deep down to the flesh and bones. Even the blood that flows in my veins were never my own but inherited from you. The heart that resides in this alive body had begun its first beat within your walls of affection and care. You gave me home to dwell, you gave me life to live, you gave me breaths to survive and asked for nothing in return.

You are magic and I marvel at your soul of which I am a puny part. I triumph in the joy of being like you, partially if not completely. I am nothing but your shadow. I take you along with me, wherever I go.

Keep me close to your heart whose rhythm is music to my life. Your warmth is the peace to my rippled soul. Your arms are condolences to my scars.

I pray, wish and hope selflessly and desperately for your well being and happiness. It is what matters and nothing else will, so strongly and so sincerely to me because I had begun from you and my world ends at you. Outside the covers of your veil is a combination of two words- fake and fraud. You are the only truth and only you are real. Rest is translucent, blurred and surreal. Purity is you second name

DEAR MOM.

Life began with waking up and loving my mother's face