Two Poems by Mini Babu

 

MARY MAGDALENE

 

We were a breath apart.

He kept on writing.

From my side,

I could hardly read.

 

I was a teardrop,

unlearning to let stones,

my fists were loose,

I held back for

an invitation,

to make it

to the other side

to read wholly

that was written.

 

My flesh aired

gratitude of been found,

for every woman

in centuries to come.

 

*Mary Magdalene is identified in the Bible as the woman who was driven to Jesus by a crowd, ready to stone her to death, calling her, “sinful woman.” Jesus let her go.

 

HAGAR

I fled to the deserts

with my son and

a little food and

water held tightly.

 

I ran looking back,

back at a place,

that was home.

In my run,

between the hills,

I fell headlong,

and got up with

a baby bruised

and water spilled.

 

I was asked to

share her husband’s bed,

to assist in

God’s promise of

descendants to Abraham.

Soon enough

I gave birth,

before long, Sarah too.

My son cried of thirst,

the wells of my heart

swelled and seethed,

and God chiselled

a well out of mother’s love

to plant it

in the deserts of exile.

 

My son drank out of

his mother’s love

and slept in the hollow peace

of the deserts,

in his dreams,

he drunk in the fullness

of his father’s home.

 

Hagar means stranger.

I am the other everywhere.

 

*Hagar – According to the Book of Genesis in the Bible, she was a maid of Sarah, whom Sarah gave to her husband Abraham to bear him a child. Sarah sought a way to fulfil God’s promise to Abraham, later Sarah  too had a child, Hagar fled to the deserts because she was ill treated by Sarah. .

Mini Babu is working as Associate Professor of English with the Dept. of Collegiate Education, Govt. of Kerala and now working at BJM Govt. College, Chavara, Kollam. Her poems have featured in anthologies, journals and magazines. Her collections of poems are Kaleidoscope (2020), Shorelines (2021) and Memory Cells (2022). Her co-edited collection of poems is Meraki (2021).