What a fool was I

You guys carry on

And I'll join you later

He always said

Anytime there was

Something 

He didn't want to attend

A shraddha, a festival 

A ritual, a community work

A death of someone distant

And he never did attend 

Anything that needed 

Even a little bit of 

Emotional labor 

Always, always giving time to

His own pursuits

His own interests 

And how foolish was I

Believing that

Just because I managed 

To shirk these 

Unpleasant responsibilities 

Once in a while

When I was young

And ostensibly studying,

I could avoid them

Forever 

And live his life of 

'tapasya' and 

'noble purpose'

Purpose

Coming to the conclusion that

There is no such thing as 

Masculinity 

Because 

All that is masculine 

Is also feminine 

(As the men like to say,

Humanists... 

Because all humans are

Human first of all...)

But yes, there is a great thing

Called femininity 

And that is not merely

'humanism'

Because they do something 

That other humans don't 

Namely, give birth

Which leads to

Lots of knowledge 

This femininity 

Is very, very hard to pin down

Very, very hard to put a finger on

And name, and articulate 

Because, often,

If you say one thing

Is femininity

Immediately 

Someone will pipie up and say

But my dad is like that 

Men can also be like that

I suppose can is the key word 

Men can

But women are.

Most, not all, of them...

And so, what are they?

I will try,

With less skill than is desirable 

To describe 

Something so important 

And yet, so elusive 

It is

In one word

Purpose 

Purpose 

Women 

Always have a purpose 

And the purpose 

Is to live life

To make the living of life

As easy and as simple 

And as quick 

As possible 

You might say

Isn't that what men also do?

Let me try and 

Have another go at it

It is

The feeling when

Mother is in the house

Versus 

When father is in the house 

When mother is in the house 

You know

She is thinking 

Of how to get food 

Cook food

How to make sure

Everyone is fed

And can make

Their schedules

How and when to clean

What to buy

What to replace 

What to destroy

In short how best to 

Live the life you have 

How best to 

Distribute resources 

Meaning time, attention,

Money, emotion

To meet everyone's needs

All their actions 

Have a purpose 

When father is in the house

It is the exact opposite 

They bumble around 

Breaking things

And the entire purpose 

Of their life

Is to accumulate 

All resources 

How best to gain

Their own comfort, fun

Pursue their interest 

The rest of the people 

Be damned to hell

Selfish 

To the bone

You might think

This is the description 

Of individuals 

Think deeper 

And know this

To be the story

Of almost 

Every household 

With the exceptions

Only proving the norm

She smiles in sleep

And i know

She knows

She is loved

And that seems to be

The biggest achievement 

Today 

Creation

After giving birth 

The one thing you realize 

Is that nothing 

Is under your control 

Nothing 

Not

A

Single 

Thing

You cannot control 

Or even predict 

When or if you will conceive 

What it is a boy or a girl

What signs you will have

How exactly you will find out

What kind of pregnancy 

You will have

Whether you will be

Hungry or perpetually full

Vomit or just nauseate

Whether you will like

Sweet or sour

Lose weight or gain weight 

And how much you will gain

If you do gain

Whether you will have 

Diabetes 

High pressure 

Or even 

Hyperemesis gravidarum 

Whether your feet will swell

And change size forever 

Or get back to what they were

Whether you will be able to walk

Or lie in bed all through 

Whether you will have 

Crystal clear thoughts

Or befuddling brain fog

Whether your belly sits high or low

Shows or doesn't show

Whether the weight your gain

Goes to you or goes to the baby

What size will the baby be

Whose eyes? Whose height?

Whose face? Whose brains?

How exactly will you have labor

Or not

In what way will the baby come out

Will it long, or short

Painful, or ecstatic 

Will you gain weight after, or lose

Will you get back to your shape

Or change

Will you be depressed 

Or buoyant 

Will you be instantly 

Attached to your baby 

Or will it take time

Or will you be 

Forever repulsed by it

Will you prefer being

Around the baby

Or will you prefer 

Being away from it

You can control nothing 

You can predict nothing 

Not a thing

So the only one thing 

About creation 

That you can tell 

For certain is that

It's painful 

It's very very painful 

And difficult as hell

And there go men

Inventing rules

To control everything 

As if things 

Nature

This world

Is controllable 

And pretending they know 

What creation is

By inventing gods

Who create

Perfectly beautiful universes

We believed them

We foolish women

Who were brought up 

To think

The world of men

The outside world

Is superior to

The world of women 

The inside world 

And so, we learned 

Control, rules, prediction

And all that nonsense 

And so

When we were faced with 

Something so vast

And powerful 

And completely outside 

Of our control 

Or even prediction 

As creation 

We were 

To put it mildly 

Deeply flummoxed 

And to put it more intensely 

Went completely crazy

Lost our marbles 

Life fell apart

And lay around 

All over the place 

Because we were 

Unable to deal with 

loss of

Control 

And after going through this

Only after going through this

And noe after

Reading or listening or learning 

Comes wisdom 

That you cannot control nature

You can only accept 

And decide 

What you do next

The double lives of women

If I say that 

I do not want to be happy

Like your mother

Happy after lavishing 

All her love, attention 

Vigor, memory 

Life, charms

On her husband and children

But mostly on husband 

Happy because he praises her

So that he can go on

Living the life of kings

Never lifting a finger at home

If I say I do not want to be 

Happy like that 

That would be true 

And if I say that

I do not want to be sad

Like your mother

Sad because 

At the end of the day

Despite all she does

She has not a single friend

Because she has been taught that

Women who gossip are bad women

So ahe proudly states that

She doesn't have any friends 

She doesn't have a single person 

Who will listen to her day

So she is desperate 

For someone, anyone

Who will listen to the

Deceivingly simple and banal

But actually the most vital

Account of her day

And thus has been waiting 

Since forever 

For her real life to begin 

Where she has one friend 

Just one friendly soul

To perform 

The most ordinary act 

Of conversation 

That elixir 

Which keeps humans alive

For this simple act she pines

And prays upon

The hapless young woman 

Expected to wait on her

But is rebuffed because 

Emotional labor 

Is a most unpleasant task 

When you do not love

The concerned person 

And so she waits and waits 

And by the time she dies

Has barely ever felt that

She has lived her real life

If I were to say

That i do not want 

To be sad like her 

That would also be true 

Images

 In the dusk of dawn

I have a new favorite color

And it's not a color

It's the collage 

of fresh, new, dark green, shining moss

upon layers and layers of old, 

faded, blurred, disintegrated, 

yellowed, grayed, moss

On a large, dark grey stone statue

Of a sleeping Buddha