With thanks to Kira who introduced me to the poetry form, Naani. Naani is one of India’s most popular Telugu poems. Naani means an expression of one and all; it consists of 4 lines and overall there should be between 20-25 syllables.
The hub showed me the Doc Brown video at the base of this blog yesterday. It made me laugh and is the inspiration for my Naani.
The first cup in the morning
Is the best
My confession is
I truly love the rest
Polly Robinson © 2013
‘It won’t be long now. She’s exhausted.’ The midwife bustled past Grace with cloths and hot water. ‘The child’s coming.’
Grace put her hand over her nose, an abattoir stench: sweaty, iron-filing rich, filled the darkened room. She shrunk back seeing heavy red blood and clots staining the cloths. Lily was pale, mumbling, tossing her hot, damp head from side to side. Grace found herself pressed hard against a wall as if trying to back her way out of the room, away from what was going on in front of her. Every few seconds Lily’s hands clenched, the knuckles whiter than the sheets she gripped and a low, loud groan broke the silence. The midwife handed a load of stained cloths to Grace and shooed her from the room. ‘You haven’t got any yet. You don’t need to see this. Go and get your sister a cup of tea, she’ll need it soon.’
Grace went downstairs and boiled yet another kettle for yet more tea. She heard Lily’s groans again, the sound filtering through the ceiling to linger in her ears. She put her hands over them, but could still hear it, low, agonised, fading into the air until the next one started. The sound filled her lungs, sent her cold. She didn’t know then, but she’d hear it for the rest of her life.
She put the wireless on. ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me,’ Fred Astaire sang. She’s always been a drama queen, Grace thought, then told herself not to be mean. Lily was in the second day of labour and still no sign of the child. She thought about how Lily soothed others in times of trouble, but she couldn’t find it in herself to go and comfort her now. Not after what she’d done. Besides which, the midwife would send her away again.
‘What do you want?’ She turned her head as her mother came into the kitchen. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’
‘Just a cup of tea, if you’re making one.’ The martyred voice grated on Grace’s nerves. ‘If it’s not too much trouble.’ Grace’s elegant mother inspected her fingernails, polished them on her skirt, held them up again examining them carefully.
Grace, though irritated, thought her mother looked younger than her years. She was tempted to wonder why that should be, but, as Andrew said, she did nothing so why wouldn’t she look good?
Her mother asked in languid tones, ‘How’s Lily doing?’
‘Not well. I’m going to send Mabel for the vicar when she gets in from school.’
‘Oh dear, that bad is she? Well he won’t take the child if anything happens to her.’
Grace scowled at her mother as she stirred the tea in the pot. Though she knew she was right, she was not going to agree with her. Men! Lily’s trouble caused by a lad who ran off the moment he knew she was expecting. If Harold hadn’t come along and married her despite the child goodness knows what her future would have been.
Tea made and given out, Grace set about washing the children’s clothes and the cloths from upstairs. The water ran russet. She watched the way the outside of the green soap whitened on the washboard as she lathered it. Soap scent and bubbles itched her nose and sluiced away the blood and gore.
The washing pegged out, her hands raw and chafed; she raised her head as she heard a squall from the upstairs room. The child. As she was about to rush upstairs, Mabel walked up the path.
‘Go and get the vicar.’ Grace shouted. ‘Lily needs him.’ Mabel dropped her bag and ran down the path veering round the garden gatepost towards the vicarage.
Would you like to read more?
This is a double whammy in that it has been written for dVerse and Claudia’s 1 year celebration, Poetics, challenge, which was to write about something seen on a daily basis, and also to meet the rules for an Alfred Dorn Sonnet, one of the forms that K McGee wrote about this month.
After the WeekendOpen the door of shop and purchase news
Pay the grumpy man behind the counter
Now think about the coming working day
A minute or two on business reviews
Today’s not the day to have much banter
Smile wide, breathe deep, prepare to meet the fray
Open the door arrive at the workplace
Greet the others there with a happy face
Celebrating a win for the Sky Blues
Lots of Facebook gossip never ending
Everyone catches up with all the news
Cups of tea or mugs of coffee blending
The kettle’s there for all of us to use
And now talk turns to Tweets that are trending
Polly Robinson © 2012
I am a little robin
Sitting in a tree,
Mamma says I have to fly,
But I am scared, you see.
My L-plate is affixed
To feathers quivering proud,
Flying lessons start,
We gather quite a crowd.
The ground is such a long way down,
My wings are brown and small,
I tell Mamma that I am scared,
She doesn’t care at all!
Pappa says ‘Fly or else
I’ll shove you off that bough,’
My little body shivers,
‘But Pa,’ I say, ‘tell how?’
‘You’ll be all right, my pretty,
You have a go,’ says he,
‘You’ll fly easy – feathers, wings –
Just think, baked beans for tea.’
I’m launched by his ‘thwack’
My wings stretch gingerly,
I can’t help looking back,
I plummet, dangerously.
The L-plate spirals wildly,
I downward tumble and flap,
My eyes are spinning in my head,
And then I feel a tap.
‘Come on love,’ says Mamma,
‘Give those wings another try,
One – two, one – two, you can do it
Look upward to the sky.’
And then I am away,
Into the blue I soar,
The L-plates fall away from me,
All of their own accord.
My Pa is crowing loudly,
He is so proud of me,
He shouts out as I flutter by,
‘OK love! Beans for tea.’
Polly Robinson © 2012
