DEVONIAN MERMAIDS

 

Devonian mermaids  is a leap into my childhood spent in Kattappana and the best part of it, Tittu, my best friend. The witch of time might have cast us into whatsoever, but I still see us together in dreams and I know life wouldn't be same if she wasn't there. They say girlfriends are like sisters, but she, she's my daughter. She is a part of me and this is for her.

The rains are dead, 

leaving these remnant pools, 

in my backyard behind,

slithery edges of mud 

with a lavish childhood of 

tadpoles breathing in,

an earth that drank a monsoon sky,

a bashful delicate Leo sun 

a new warmth, 

an invigorating defiance,

a vintage feeling, 

reflections and moods. 

Hopping in rumpled skirts,

dangling our itchy damp feet 

into loud laughters of inane stories

There, we were, two half souls

running for the dragonflies,

sucking the nectar out of flowers  

when our moms weren't watching 

drawing pretend swords

pulled out of epics, on each other 

filling our pockets with java apples

and licking the ants on them 

- she said they improved eyesight! 

A sour speck of unripe wisdom

of times when the universe 

had fewer truths to contain. 

We ran, relentlessly,

clutching our springtimes

tight in our fists, like 

reels of kites we flew

into the skies of living myths.

Exhilarated? for life was  

still far from murkier roads

Or timid? did we overhear 

the prophecy about a witch 

who'd cast us into strangers,

who once met in a 

muddy pool of monsoon? 

But here we are, 

two little tadpoles 

swimming our way through mud  

like Devonian mermaids 

who've survived apocalypses,

watched marks of catastrophes

in each nook we hid and sought

and seen Earth evolve

through solstices and epochs.

Here we are, spirited

two little mermaids

in the spotlight of 

some driery yellows of a 

wavering horizon

still cheering from the past.