Monsoon Winds and other poems

David Tneh

Monsoon Winds 

I feel the tropical winds  
caressing my face, 
like soft kisses  
blown from pouting lips. 

The winds bring the rains, 
and they creep slowly with 
the blankets of 
damp clouds and dark  
moody winds that 
gush gently over the hills  
and into grandmother’s 
attap house. 

The rains bring moisture, 
delicate and cold. 
A certain transient  
dampness soon invades  
the open air and drapes 
the wooden furniture. 
 
Pockets of dust  
swirl into open space. 
They float aimlessly 
with the breeze, 
like tiny lights dancing  
in the bright of day. 
Shimmering specks  
of hope and sadness, 
like the candour 
of memories taking 
flight with each 
gentle stream of 
the monsoon winds. 

— —

Orchard Lights 

Grandfather looks ahead, 
his straw hat crooked as he ponders 
while watering his orchard, 
his wrinkled face filled with furrows 
of emotions from the yesteryears 
of living. 
 
Grandmother watches him, 
her basket and shears next  
to the canister. 
She follows him,  
pulling the long 
brown-stained rubber hose  
as he waters the lime trees  
as nonchalantly as the 
sun draping the orchard 
with its light.  
 
A breeze passes, 
and slow rise of winds 
moves the greens like 
a dream of silhouette 
and light.  
As the light thins, 
its spectrum dissipates, 
its lustre wavers, and  
its sheen slowly glides  
away. 
 
The skies turn grey, 
grandfather and grandmother  
slowly coils the water hose 
and walks slowly 
from the orchard 
into the dim house and 
the passing light 
retreats slowly 
into the hills. 

— —

Monsoon Memories  

When it was raining, big brother would lie on the cold cement floors 
while I took peeks at the orchard outside.  
 
The rains would soon strain the roof of the tool shed 
and streaming water would trickle into the crevices and cracks along
the grooves of the rusting aluminium sheet.

Grandmother’s little orchard would be washed afresh, 
its lime leaves shiny and heavy with droplets from the monsoon rains. 
 
I would marvel at the shiny leaves, their greenery made clearer  
with the blanket of moisture and light from the sun. 

Inside, I would pace the house gingerly,  
careful to avoid the scary spots where a Pontianak could be hiding in
the shadows. 
Even that window with a banana tree growing next to it 
seems to be beckoning with its long leaves 
and I shudder at the sight of its green presence  
in the darkening evening sun. 

Sometimes, the strong winds would give life to the door curtains.  
Flapping and floating aimlessly, they are a windy spectre that move
spontaneously with 
the wild imaginations of a timid child. 
 
Darting quickly, I would await grandmother’s arms and while tugging at
her floral sarong, 
she would pacify me with biscuits and a cup of hot coffee laced with
condensed milk. 

Lighting a flame with coconut husks,  
the flames would mimic her movement,  
her shadows partaking in an eerie dance  
while the smoke rises steadily in wisps,  
upwards the zinc roof. 
 
Again, I would run from the smoky kitchen,  
past the ghostly curtains and the haunted places 
to the open freshness of the orchard and  
its kaleidoscopic light 
longing for the warm touch  
of light on skin  
and the soft droplets  
of the passing rain. 

— —
 

Morning Lights 

Grandmother steps into the dark kitchen 
and peeps out of the windowsill. 
Darkness and coldness,  
then the first light slowly emerges. 
Like fresh embers kindling, the orange glow 
radiates outward from the eastern skies. 
Its slow warmth creeping slowly from the green hills and 
down the valley, reaching the misty orchard, the slow-paced 
giant snails and the slugs at the end of the pool.  
Puddles of water from the early showers slowly 
mirror double images, natural reflections as 
pure and untainted as the morning light. 
The jungle fowl scratches for insects and its shiny 
coat gleams in majestic ruby red, overlapping its 
brownish and blackish feathers, wax-like from the 
early morning dew.  
 
The early light soon blankets the entire village, 
steadily warming the rusty attap sheets  
with a soft reddish glow, radiating outwards, then mingling with the  
misty charcoal smoke of the burning copra on the stove. 
A wisp of kerosene, a flick of the charcoal and the cream enamel 
pot squats contently on the burning ring of fire. 
 
Grandmother watches quietly and her figure  
moves quickly through the bare kitchen. 
She watches the fire intently as the slow rising 
heat and the morning enters. 
Her eyes adjust to the brightness  
and spatial dimensions. 
The white light, weightless, 
begins to paint the world with its luminance,  
its spectrums defining what she sees, 
filling the lenses with the visible  
and the invisible, 
frame after frame. 

— —

Orchard Memories 

First published in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, August 2009 (Issue 8) 

(For grandfather) 

Nonchalantly, 
you walked with a watering hose 
to shower the lime trees of your 
precious toil. Trudging the cut slopes, 
you drag the hose up the earth, 
tugging the rubber and its 
leaky joints that slowly uncoil 
as you pull it up-hill. 
The leaky tap under the zinc shed 
strains to provide the pressure and 
precious water drips from it, 
forming a small puddle below the pipe. 
Occasionally a spray of water 
would shower the air. 
A cold white mist would linger, 
spectre-like, a multicolour streak. 
Then, a phosphorescent of hues 
would coat the sun's rays and 
a bizarre gliding spectrum 
would coat my eyes, 
like a drop of colour in clear water. 
A tincture of memories 
made of water, light, and 
the evening sun. 

— —

Orchard Dreams 

First published in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, August 2009 (Issue 8) 

(For grandmother) 
 
My mothers' mother 
always dresses in a floral sarong. 
She tends to her ducks and lime trees 
and feeds the loud birds with squashed snails 
thrown over the makeshift shack with wire fencing. 
 
I would pace quietly behind, 
dragging the long brown hose, watching her 
showering her cherished lime trees while the sound 
of howling of dogs and jungle fowl fill the jungle landscape. 
On quiet evenings after the afternoon rains, she would 
stroll around her garden with a straw hat and clippers. 
Moving slowly among the various jambu trees 
with a brown rattan basket, 
she was silent. And so was I. 
As the evening smoke sets in 
and the sun wilts away, 
her frail body rests on a rattan chair 
while her deep eyes would gaze at her orchard. 
I would hear her move again, 
walking down the cement steps 
and into the kitchen, 
lighting the charcoal stove 
in the sunset hours 
of the smokey evening.