A journal of art + literature engaging with nature, culture, the environment & ecology

Two poems by Meenakshi Palaniappan

Meenakshi Palaniappan, Singapore

 

What I Want to Be

 

When my son was three, 

he asked me

what I wanted to be when I grew

up. The possibilities lit up, 

at the thought I could still be.

Like a second chance at life 

I said I’d like to be 

a pianist, an artist, a writer,

but now I wonder,

could I be a tree maybe? 

 

A seraya if so,

I’d live more than a hundred years,

striking straight for the stars 

before I branch out, 

the ribs that run down me 

a ladder to the sky. 

Yes, I’ll be a mighty giant,

one that stands the test of time. 

 

Or perhaps… I'll be the sea,

writing and revising shorelines

forever. I’d have lived to see

dinosaurs roam

and mosasaurs dive deep,

the trilobite turning to stone on my

bed.  I'll ebb and flow, 

washing the sins of the past into the future,

when humans will have come and gone,

and the next kings of the land rule the world.

Have I a tree in me? Or the sea? 

I definitely have birds in me. 

Maybe I’ll be a bird, 

the drongo with my two tail

feathers  trailing far behind me.

I’ll fly from tree to tree 

but make the seraya my home.

Or I’ll be the golden plover, 

so small and brown, 

you won’t notice me till I’m gone 

to far off lands across the sea. 

 

One thing I know, is that after all

this, I’ll still always want to be 

the mother to this child, who, 

with his questions, so sets me free.

Butterflies

I saw two butterflies chasing each other

as I walked back to work from lunch

today. The flutter of early love, I supposed.

They sense April is here, and seem caught

in a rush of affection, 

a ‘can’t get enough of each other’ attraction, 

in and out of bushes, 

round and round the treetops,

first approaching, then dancing away,

now together, at last, on a leaf,

delicately balanced,

each holding the other.

 

Is this love I wonder,

the almost but not quite there

kisses that brush the ears

that tease, invite, and

torment until release,

heedless of the sun, the rain –

the butterfly chase,

 

or is it in the everyday, 

the way you hold the cold compress

to my arm after my first date with Moderna 

and pay our bills on time every month,

the way you buy the best carrots and potatoes

at the wet market, and check the routes

on google map for me,  before I set out, 

the way you wake up in the middle of the

night in a thunderstorm, 

to close all the windows?

 

Yours is a love to hold us together

from April through to March

and then again, 

one that lasts even after

the imprint of butterfly kisses 

fade away.

 

Meenakshi Palaniappan is a Literature educator and a quiet observer of the world around her.  She writes to think and enjoys playing with words to paint pictures of life as she sees it. She is  especially drawn to nature. Her poems have been published in Shot Glass Journal, The Tiger  Moth Review, Mothers Always Write and in The Poet’s summer issue of Friends & Friendship  Vol 2.

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