“The Gift” by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

After Pumpkin at Sea  by James Browning Wyeth

how they despaired at me –
obstinate princess who bayed
night after night for the moon.
servants whispered in nooks
of my spiteful ways,
who will rein in this impossible girl
what man will take her upon himself,
contain her tantrums someday?
like the maiden in the fairytale
shown the reflection of the moon
in water, by ladies-in-waiting,
they played the same ruse –
trapping the moon in an urn
mirrored in liquid shimmer
but I kicked the basin over and fumed.

many moons later you came sailing,
seafaring prince from a far away land,
crossing the rolling ultramarine,
to the precipice where I stood,
wind rippling the sap-green reeds
fingers tapping the lookout’s grey
and for a spoilt little girl of yesteryear
who had howled and hankered for the moon,
I had blossomed into a serene queen
sedate now in the knowledge
that the world did not owe her a thing
simply because it was here first
and I smiled as you placed upon the moss,
as a token of your proffered love
plucked and cooled from the linen sky
the pumpkin sun, in its ripe grandeur..

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad is a Sydney based artist, poet, and improv pianist. She holds a Masters in English. Oormila is a member of Sydney’s North Shore Poetry Project and Authora Australis. She has exhibited her art and accompanying poetry in Kuwait, India, Singapore and Australia. Her works have been published in the Red Eft Review, Glass Poetry Journal’s Poets Resist, Eunoia Review, and Underwood Press’ Rue Scribe. She regularly performs her poems and exhibits her paintings at shows in Sydney.