My Little One (and a video of me reading it)

The photopoetry below was written and created by me a day before I read it at a Northern Writers session. It's one of my longer ones - about motherhood. About the mother I want to be; The way my mother raised me.
You may scroll to the bottom of this entry for a video of me reading it and some details on the Northern Writers.

If we were in a garden,
You would be the butterfly.
I would whisper softly enough for you to listen;
Of the delicate beauty of your wings,
Of the way they're made to fly.

But before I could even tell you
of softness,
Of how slightly pastel the pink polka dots on your wings had become,
You would have pointed out to me first,
My wings; They're warm,
They could embrace the both of us.

If we were in a garden,
I would sing to you of how you could fly.
For you would have taught me freedom;
You would have made me breathe the sky.

The freedom to touch,
The freedom to share,
The freedom to look you in the eye,
The freedom to watch you grow,
The freedom to love.
Just how far you would have brought me to the sky.

But a garden;
Are we there yet?
But a song;
Can we hear yet?

If we were music,
You would be the missing key in the songs your father had written.
If we were a dreamer's poetry,
You would be the dream in each verse.

And my days; They would surround you.
My nights; Made by you.

For if we were day,
You would be the warmth that keeps us out at play.
If we were night,
You would be the reflected moonlight, the brighter starlight.

And I would hand you a box of crayons;
A life of colour.
And if they'd tell you there's no garden,
We would draw one.
Of apple blossoms and sunlit daffodils;
We would colour a garden.
And if they wouldn't believe we're butterflies,
We would colour some wings.
Of orange hues and pastel pink polka dots,
We would draw us two pairs of wings.

If we were art,
You would be the palette of colours to paint us a name.

If I were a mother,
I would hand you a box of crayons, my little child,
The same one;
My mother gave.



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It was a beautiful Saturday morning, slightly tranquil than usual, when I had the chance to read in a cozy old black and white building in Ipoh with amazing writers Chuah Guat Eng, Mary Schneider and Uthaya Sankar SB.

I can't thank Yusuf Martin enough for organizing this and for letting me be part of such a beautiful initiative.

What made the event more beautiful was the presence of my mother, my husband and my former English Literature teacher from high school who had always been my role model. I may not be where I am now nor go up there to read my poem if it weren't for them and their support all these years.

I hope you enjoyed the poem above. And I hope to see you at another Northern Writers event perhaps. Do follow its Facebook page for more info. Have a great week now.