Tanka For Sali Upholding Her Wonderful Nature
Her essence shines through the Dementia!
Through all the Changes
Your Nature Remains the Same
Sweet, Joyful, Loving
Radiating Sallyness
Constant as the Northern Star
© Ken Chawkin
Parkview Care Center
April 4, 2015, 5:40pm
Fairfield, Iowa, USA
I wrote Our Meditation Love Poem, about 4 ½ years ago, and decided to post it now, for Valentine’s Day. I was visiting my sweetheart during the week at her care facility and wrote the poem and story behind it that Saturday, September 4, 2010, almost 4 ½ months after she moved in.
I was remembering the meditation we had this week; my chest area filled up with a great inner warmth and bliss of loving you. Tonight, I was listening to Leonard Cohen singing his songs of love, and started writing this poem from that memory, that feeling, and also remembered the quote in the film, Tristan and Isolde, when he is dying and he says to her, “You were right—life is greater than death, but love is greater than either.” He was referring to what she had said when they first met, about following your heart, and that love in one’s life fills up what would otherwise be an empty shell of duty and honor, quoting John Donne’s The Good Morrow, where he writes:
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares,
And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest,
…..
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.
So I came up with this poem, Our Meditation Love Poem. I found myself writing a 17-syllable line, the sum of a haiku in 3 lines. I liked the flow and decided to make each line 17 syllables long, each one having its own internal rhythm and flow. I wanted to write 11 lines for some reason, maybe thinking there were 11 syllables in each line. But now I remember there are 17. But I would then have to write 6 more lines, and right now I can’t see it. I naturally divided them into 2 stanzas of 4 lines each followed by a stanza of 3 at the end. It seems to have worked well.
Related: See this #RomanticPoem for #ValentinesDay: i carry your heart with me by e.e. cummings. This Quiet Love, a #LovePoem from Kenny, for Sally on #ValentinesDay. ‘In Our Loving Eyes’ a poem by @kenchawkin remembering a special love with Sally Peden.
Enjoy reading other beautiful love poems posted on The Uncarved Blog.
This Quiet Love
This is a quiet love
One of simplicity and easiness
No complications here
It’s too late in life for that sort of thing
Just time to be best friends
© Ken Chawkin
October 22, 2006
Fairfield, Iowa
I wrote this poem around 8 years and 4 months ago at the recognition of a growing friendship I was sharing with someone special. I realized I was enjoying a different kind of love at this stage of my life, and it was good. Earlier attempts at love in relationships had been disappointing—unrequited, romantic, irresponsible, tempestuous, lustful, and in the end, unfulfilled. I didn’t think true love was possible, or if it even existed.
And then it happened, but not all at once. We had met briefly 10 years earlier, then forgot. After we unknowingly reconnected, a story in itself, love took some time to blossom, to be earned. She was UNDECIDED about being COMMITTED. Through each stage, poems would flow forth; she became my muse. All poems listed in the sub-category Sally Peden are about Sali, except the first 3, which were written by her about a visit To Jyotir Math with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Later my love would be tested when An Unwanted Guest came to live with us. Eventually we would have to live apart, which led to the Dementia Blues. But Sally’s Smile would continue to uplift me and all those around her. Many changes continue to transform our lives, each in our own way. I never would have imagined this kind of development, but This Quiet Love continues to sustain me. As does the love of my family, my children and my siblings, for which I am truly grateful.
And even with the ongoing decline, Sally continues to maintain her essential nature.
See this #RomanticPoem for #ValentinesDay: i carry your heart with me by e.e. cummings. See Our Meditation Love Poem for Valentine’s Day, and other beautiful love poems posted on The Uncarved Blog.
See this most recent post, December 8, 2016, Capturing an authentic moment in writing, Being with Sali, August 1, 2012, on a full moon night. It concludes with an update, of Sali’s passing, October 1, 2016, with a link to a blog post by Valerie Gangas, Life in Love with You, describing her personal response to Sali’s Funeral Service and Vedic Cremation Ceremony, which took place on October 5, 2016.
Here is the most recent update, December 28, 2016: An early attempt at some kind of closure with a poem on Sali’s passing and auspicious times.
And, as a reminder, the poem, Love After Love by Derek Walcott, profoundly describes the basis for any love relationship, knowing and loving your self.
See these Final entries leading up to and after Sali’s passing. And this recent entry with photos and stories: For Us—a tanka honoring Sali and what we shared.
I would later record This Quiet Love and two other love poems for Sali (COMMITTED and In Our Loving Eyes) for a 2019 Valentine’s Day program on KHOE, MUM’s campus radio station. Click here to read and listen to them.
Sitting with Sali on a cold winter Sunday afternoon at Parkview Care Center, looking out the window of her room at the powdered snow being blown off the white roofs in swirls. At one point, with the sun shining through in front of us, you could almost see a rainbow; only it was a snowbow! Made that up. We laughed. I had been in a rough mood, but what I saw, and the spontaneous playful art of composing a haiku, transformed me. The second and third lines came out first, and the first line last. I changed wind blows to winds blow to rhyme with snow. The rhythms, rhymes and meanings of the words sort of sound like what we saw. They’re powerful. Say them aloud a few times and see what happens. Sali seemed to like it. I love it! it’s fun! Here’s the poem.
WINTER HAIKU
© Ken Chawkin
Feb 9, 2014
Fairfield, Iowa
Dementia Blues
A tanka written after a holiday party at Parkview
Brain cell by brain cell
You’re disappearing from me
I’m alone again
How hard it must be for you
Disappearing from yourself
© Ken Chawkin
December 8, 2013
Fairfield, Iowa, USA
Related: An Unwanted Guest
The Curse of Dementia: On watching a loved one diminish before your eyes, poem by Ken Chawkin
This past Thursday, September 19, 2013, turned out to be an early Full Moon night. For some reason I ended up visiting Sali 3 times that day, twice to drop off things. The first time I stayed with her as she and the other residents were going to be entertained by a country music band. Their gentle songs from the fifties brought back memories when I first heard them as a child. It was very relaxing and healing for us as we listened together. When I returned later that night to read to her, she was already in bed. I leaned in and looked closely into her eyes. We both started laughing out loud, with great joy in our hearts. While sharing this experience with a friend at lunch today, the day of the autumnal equinox, I spoke of experiencing an orgasm of the heart. She repeated that line, and said it was something special. I noticed it also had seven syllables and wrote it down. Later, when we all went out for a walk together, the rest of the haiku easily assembled itself. I shared it with her; it sounded powerful. She said it gave her goosebumps, from head to toe and back.
Haiku of the Heart
for Sali
♥ ♥ ♥
Such joy between us
An orgasm of the heart
Looking in your eyes
♥ ♥ ♥
© Ken Chawkin
Experienced Thursday, September 19, 2013, Full Moon Night
Written Sunday, September 22, 2013, Autumnal Equinox
Fairfield, Iowa, USA
I remember another joyful time Being with Sali, August 1, 2012, also on a full moon night: Capturing an authentic moment in writing.
On August 31, 2017 I posted this related entry: ‘In Our Loving Eyes’ a poem by @kenchawkin remembering a special love with Sally Peden.
Haiku With My Muse
You are my soul mate
With you, I can be mySelf
Together, We Are
© Ken Chawkin
With Sali at Parkview
Sunday, March 17, 2013
See Celebrating Paul Horn and his Contribution to Jazz, World Music, Meditation and Spirituality.
These two haiku were composed spontaneously while talking to my friend Sali. She’s also my muse, and keeps me, both of us, amused.
I
Our body’s a purse
containing the universe.
Can you spare some change?
II
The bib testifies
to the lunch that was eaten—
Boy, that was good food!
© Ken Chawkin
Fairfield, Iowa
Phrases come out spontaneously while talking with Sali. I count the syllables and realize they make up the first two lines of a haiku, then come up with the third line. Don’t know where they come from, but the juxtapositions make us laugh. The first haiku was composed mid-morning, and the second while feeding Sali her lunch, on Saturday, June 16, 2012. Posted them today, Fathers Day, Sunday, June 17, 2012.
In the Parkview Cave
A tanka for Sali inspired by Sarah during an acupuncture treatment
I come to see you
A sanyasin in a cave
Doing her tapas
The transformation is there
Self-contained, blissful, you are
© Ken Chawkin
April 21, 2012
Fairfield, Iowa
My first haiku, Transformed, is appropriate here.
Sali’s Shakti
(a two-tanka poem)
They say your power
Used to shine…from your bright mind
Now…it’s through your heart
From you…flow Beauty and Grace
Love lights…in your eyes and face
How does this happen…
That I love you even more…
You fulfill my heart…
This force that draws…me…to you
Wants to make…a One…from two
© Ken Chawkin
March 12/13, 2012
Fairfield, Iowa, USA
The Uncarved Blog 