To Her Babyness

Three Poems
To Her Babyness,
Mannati Dinesh Nalluri,
First of Her Name.

1
Your mom will call you Coorgi,
Your dad will say you’re Brahmin.
Don’t listen to either of them –
You are the entire universe sheathed in
Wrinkly, Kangaroo skin.

2
I would never understand how adults

Confidently declare –
Hey! See? The baby has his nose, or,
Her eyes, his smile, or her glare.
Frustrated I would wonder what is it
That they could but I could not see.
I know now that this is the gift of experience.
A gift received after a lifetime of waiting
And forbearance –
This ability to see another in another.

You are the result of
A daisy chain of such mirrored visages,
A practiced system of handing down vestiges –
Heirlooms that are passed down after the smallest of changes,
Generation after generation after generation.

You are the latest, most perfect daisy.


3
There are so many things

To ask you, little-mine.
You arrive late in the game, or maybe,
Just, just on time.

Tell me what things were like before.
What it was like when you were still about to be.
Unborn.
Unalive.
Unburdened by gravity.

Tell me what those nights were like?
Those days were like before light?
What sleep was like before dreams were dreams?
What color of light was light?

Tell me what it was like when you were being.
Becoming.
Expressing all the potential hidden
In all your being.
Tell me if gravity has been burdening.

Tell me all about the surfacing –
The last gulp of fluid,
The first rush of air –

The incessant, insistent ascending.

And now that you
Have been and are
Tell me what you are.

 

Where are you from?

 

For it feels obvious to me that
This is not
Your home but station.
A chance stop along the length
And breadth
Of your travels, one
Of many destinations.

 

Perhaps you are an astronaut,
And your mother’s womb  your spaceship,
In which you spent nine months
Adapting,
Forming
The outer coverings
Of blood and flesh and skin,
Against this earth air that oppresses you,
You who are made of feather-light light.

 

For what else can you be
If you are to be
A Traveler of Space
But light.
Light is the fastest thing
And you have immensities to be in.

 



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4 responses to “To Her Babyness”

  1. “And now that you
    Have been and are
    Tell me what you are.”……beautiful!

    Like

    1. I’m glad you like it!

      Like

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