Gentle Ustads: Six poems by John Copley Alter
A childhood photograph of Martha, John, and Tom Alter (L-R) with their mother. Source: John Copley Alter
‘Three ages ago you were / wrestling with mortality, my brother. / Today you are open in my mind like / a score of music, a keyboard, waiting.’
Author’s Note: In the spirit of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30—when to the sessions of sweet thought…—these poems were written in Kunshan, China, as a means of transportation to Uttarakhand where I hear always the veena of Ajit Singh and the voice of my brother Tom Alter, whether reciting a ghazal or exhorting his team on the cricket pitch, the basketball court. In the spirit of Wordsworth, these flash upon that inward eye… My regular chakkar.
Ghazal
Go back to the ghazal then what will you do
there?
Life always pulsed harder than the
lines.
Adrienne Rich
You sit down on the veranda of the ghazal.
Your brother may be there, speaking in
tongues.
It is the season of rhododendrons.
Ekphrastic intoxication for one thing.
He looks across a body of water.
You and he are intended to meet.
And yet, distracted by blossoms, you sit.
The veranda, the ghazal.
Even to hope is to leap into the unknown,
under the mocking eyes of the way things are.
Adrienne Rich
So much mockery—the crockery of
empire for instance— mischievous monkies.
And the whole convoluted aviary of
hope— we wait like feeders on a deck.
The mountains do not mock us—they shrug
their great shoulders—a granite ghazal.
Yes, hope with her iridescent feathers
alights on today’s bare branch— we nod
agreement…
I scarce esteem Location’s Name –
Dickinson
You were always somewhere on location
he says to his brother. They are lost.
No, lost and found are a game you played
once lifetimes ago. Self-discovery.
Now you sit on the veranda of the ghazal
listening to a raga or Ellington.
Soon the dead you have loved will out-
number the living who outnumber you.
You were on location. Death, courteous,
decisive, gave you good lines.
Tom Alter
Profound logothete, lover of languages. Dylan
Thomas, Bob Dylan, Ghalib. In the
original.
Actor.
Son, brother, husband, father, best of friends.
Athlete, sportsman. Cricket, baseball.
Protestant, in the full sense, against mediocrity
and mendacity. A true citizen.
One who encouraged and inspired. Generous of
spirit.
Nostalgic, in the full sense. Sentimental, in the
best sense.
You lived life abundantly.
I shall be good health to you
These poems.
Time passes. Three ages ago you were
wrestling with mortality, my brother.
Today you are open in my mind like
a score of music, a keyboard, waiting.
We are on the shores of a lake in New
England today. Your laughter—laughing
loons.
You are not amazed by all that has grown
out
of your life, verdant, surprising,
fresh.
You wait for us somewhere I know,
sipping
tea, composing ghazals.
I don’t know exactly what you & Maulana
would make of our world today not to
mention Ghalib
& Gandhi
not to mention Lala Amarnath
or the Beatles
and of course not mentioning our parents what
would
they make of Donald Trump
of Modi
of how the pandemic is reordering things of fire
and famine and you my brother who would
be seventy now dada Tom
what would you think
A late afternoon raga
Raga Bhimpalasi let’s say you ask
us to listen to, a late afternoon raga.
Sit still, sit gently down, and listen
you encourage us as you yourself ride off.
You leave us for a moment, a room full
of instruments wistfully waiting to be played.
Listen, you whisper to us, listen to the raga
of the late afternoon mountains. Listen.
Grief plays each of us, love’s late afternoon
raga. Departing, the master smiles.
— for Ajit Singh
The humble ustad
Today the web is quivering with the news
that a gentle man has died, a musician,
a sardar who after decades of teaching
opened a music shop where you could find him
on a slow afternoon sipping tea, surrounded
by instruments, each an obedient disciple,
although, a gentle ustad, he no more needed
disciples
than the late afternoon mountains read the news.
You could find him often, smiling, surrounded
by mountains, enchanted by amateur musicians.
Instruments came from time to time to find him.
He did not fret. Improvisation and teaching
and a cup of tea. He did not mind teaching
those who had no desire to be disciples.
The instruments on the other hand, they would
find him
sometimes on his scooter or reading the news
and wait patiently. He was their musician
of choice, and when he played, joy surrounded
him. He lived like that, teaching, surrounded
by mountains, by music. He loved teaching
us. A gentle ustad he was our musician,
although we were never his disciples
although just now startled by reading the news
that never again will we find him
in his shop we realize that each of us can find him
if we listen carefully—there, surrounded
by mountains—there, you can read the good news
that a gentle ustad will always be teaching
us that love is the only way to be a disciple—
listen—the mountains are welcoming their
musician
home. For us he was always a musician.
There was no question—you would find him
within easy reach of music—a disciple
of love he gently, persistently, surrounded
himself with mountains, music, and teaching—
today the web is quivering with the news.
For him music was always the good news
that somebody needs teaching. Now we find him
surrounded by mountains, a willing disciple.
— for Ajit Singh
Sunrise, Pauri
Sunrise over Pauri—the blueblack ridges
spread like the lines
of a ghazal
like inscriptions
on god’s palm—
and the sun
rising like a reader
eager for exegesis—
or the mountains
are the left hand
of the jazz piano
the sun
the right hand
nimble—playing the raga
the blues
of today—
farfetched you think drinking your morning
tea—
the mountains
of dream
dissolve into the day
like sugar
dissolving in tea—
Pauri
***
John Copley Alter was born in Landour in August 1947 and studied and taught at the Woodstock School. Currently, he is retired and lives with his wife in Shanghai.
