Here’s a poem by Sumita that celebrates nature, the playful innocence of girls, memory, and identity, in Different Truths.
The surface rippled,
Three pairs of feet plopped in
And the tadpoles scurried
To hide in caverns.
Sighs of relief
Brushed over the tiny rock pool
As cool water
Soothed sore feet.
The tadpoles gamboled again,
Silence drawing them out;
They didn’t see the awestruck faces
Watch the rain-clouds approach.
Feet dashed out of the pool,
Flashed wet into shoes,
Humping backpacks
They sprinted down the hill.
The tadpoles darted to hide,
They didn’t see
The slanting column of rain
Join Earth to a bulbous cloud.
When fat droplets hammered down,
Bullets shredding the pond,
They shivered with fright;
They didn’t hear the girls whoop with delight.
They didn’t see the girls
Race each other
Leaving behind joyous laughter
Echoing on the hillsides.
Sliding on wet rock, leaping thorny scrub,
Splashing through churned mud,
The girls scrambled
To outrun rain approaching head-on.
Hah! Stinging necks, arms, exposed skin;
Smacking on heads, walloping clothes,
Running in rivulets down sun-browned limbs;
The rain swooped in victorious.
The tadpoles didn’t see
The girls tear across a farmer’s fallow field,
Panting giggles lost in fiercely tattooing rain,
Until brought short by a broad deep trench.
The tadpoles didn’t see
The flash flood roiling down the hilly end
In frothing bubbles and fuming spume,
Heavy water gushing to fill the gorge.
The tadpoles didn’t see
Two girls jump in, dart across and climb to safety;
They called the third to hurry,
But she hesitated a bit too long.
The tadpoles didn’t see
The third jump in at last,
The rushing water now an angry river
Just a few feet away from swamping her.
The tadpoles didn’t see
The fear-filled eyes,
Or hear the scream of the girls safe on the bank:
‘Mahe! Get out of there!’
The tadpoles didn’t see
Mahe nimbly climb on to a root spanning the gully,
And balance limbs braced apart
As the water gurgled past inches beneath.
The tadpoles didn’t see;
Only those girls are blessed with that memory.
©Sumita Dutta
Photos from the Internet
#ChildhoodMemories #Puddle #Tadpoles #Poem #Laughter #Memory #DifferentTruths
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