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.