Curated ghosts
Living and past ones...
Another poem, just because it’s poetry month…and I’m taking part in a poem-a-day month long challenge!
This one based on a curious place that I was very close to last August i.e., Vezio Castle, which follows a strange tradition of creating “ghosts”. Read about it here.
It says…
These ghosts of Vezio are plaster casts made by the managers of the castle each year. Tourists volunteer to have plaster fitted to them, which are used to create these ghostly figures. They are then left to the elements throughout the winter until a new season begins and the ghosts are cast anew…
I didn’t visit the castle but pictures of the ghostly figures evoked these memories and this poem…
Ghosts of Vezio Castle
I see the ghosts of Vezio castle
Draped in white plaster melting to earth
Marking their shapes, their heads
As if shying from asserting their presence
Or just a symbol of modesty
Calling me to my grandmother
Never failing to drape her head with a chunni
A fine white fabric that once was expensive muslin
Adorning her 14-year old bridal face
A shadow to the cheap white cotton on the day she died
*
I see the ghosts of Vezio castle
How they sit in hollowing wait
Looking out to the skies, the lake, the mountains
Like she must have for her husband to return
But greeting only a messenger of his death
How she must have grieved for him
Still forced to somehow gather her courage
And children to flee across a bloodied border
*
I see the ghosts of Vezio castle
Not sitting upright but crouched
Like she did when tired by life’s demands
Her back bending, so not to break
Weathering the icy winds of age and change
Stilling them with a gentle chant of her daily prayers
*
I see the ghosts of Vezio castle
They sit in lonely outlines
Gazing out in vacant, emptied stares
Like hers when Alzheimer’s stole her soul
###
-Reena 4/3/23
As many of you may know “bloodied borders” refers to the 1947 Partition of India, which I have written about here and here.
I’ve also written about my grandmother, whose life and courage have had an outsized influence on me, in a single sentence here:
Tell me what you think!
Extra!
If you’re on Instagram and don’t know of this yet, check out the absolutely hilarious Instagram page of the National Parks Service. I want to meet the person behind daily gems of this kind (click to read the entire post).
And if you don’t already, then the other Instagram account which is a must-follow is from yours truly… c’mon folks! ;-)
Nani as Beacon = Light... i like that Very Much... those are words that will stick to my stomach.
reflecting deeply into a Grandmother, something I would have liked to have experienced.
and the poem very evocative and spooky, with those draped Souls listing in various spaces... I enjoyed the real landscape in which they were held, till they diisolved back to earth. Thank you!
That is so interesting! What an interesting tradition to cast these ghostly figures. Beautiful poem about your courageous Nani <3