Hammock by the Ocean
The lands speaks to me, bares its secrets. I clutch a fistful of the rocky soil, fondle
the dandelion strewn grass, sit by the old oaks, listen to thrumming waves. We are
of distant worlds. The lore of the land reverberates in me though I have not
lived it. Loss is subliminal; it contours the land, a stream running through the
meshes of mind, cerebral symphonies echoing in time. I discover a mortar and a
grinding stone along a cliff, remnants of a bygone time. Things can throb with love
and longing. Something in me breaks, aches, pulsates. A raindrop splashes upon
my open palm. Rain is unpredictable like life, a primordial song coming to sing itself. I croon to it,
divergent paths align wordlessly by fallen acorns, new footsteps on old.
Home is a hammock by the ocean.
Roses in the Lagoon
Roses grow in the lagoon
They are primal, resilient, dense
Like the lagoon
And like the lagoon
They have lived all times
Ancient old new
Unlike the lagoon
They tell intrepid stories—
Rhapsodic truthful heartbreaking
Of Native perseverance
Of Spanish expansion
Of bygone Mexican ranches
Of the timeless creek that
runs by the old pines
Of a war long ago
I snip a cluster of roses and bring them home
Their stories gain dimension
War plays out before my eyes—Mexican ranches making way for American farms and estate homes
I hold the blooms close
My suburban story flares in me
Like the blaze of roses
What the Postcards don’t Tell
San Diego is a beach town. The postcards tell that story well—frothy blue waters, white sand, the surfer boys gliding on waves, the orange sun sinking into the Pacific. There is another story, too. The one that the post cards don’t tell. We are also a river town. Yes, there is a 52-mile-ribbon of blue that gushes down the Volcan Mountains, passing through town to jump into the Pacific. That ribbon of blue is our beautiful San Diego River. The one that the native inhabitants, the Kumeyaay, called the Upside Down River because its waters disappeared in the summer, seeping below the shimmering sand to flow underground. While it is no Nile, Thames, Danube, or Seine, or for that matter, even the Vltava, the San Diego River, is our much loved river, a sacred symbol of life. Away from the hype of the beaches, it is a cool, serene secret tucked among shrubs and trees. Yes, the one that the postcards don’t tell. Running through time for nearly 2000,000 years, the river has seen it all—the travails of the natives, and the much later rapid occupation of the land by the Europeans. Quietly, it continues to watch as new immigrants settle in the land, scribbling yet braver stories along its banks even as frisky bass and catfish dance on its rising and ebbing waters, old willows looking on. Sometimes, I walk along the river in old town, bunches of wildflowers sprouting from the grass, breeze ruffling my hair. Always, always, I have a Huck Finn moment and I burst into a smile. Much like the legendary Mississippi, our little river, too, is an adventure, a metaphor, a treasure waiting to be unearthed, an ongoing party, a dream uninterrupted. It flows through minds, rising and retreating by turns. Now you know the other story. Never mind those post cards.
(Simrita Dhir lectures at the University of California, San Diego, and is the author of acclaimed novels The Rainbow Acres and The Song of Distant Bulbuls.)
