I am a tribal child, living in the forest thrones,
Where fireflies light the mangrove crowns,
The sago trees are here to be the granules of starch,
The hungry crocodiles in the water look for our tiny limbs,
The glittering eyes of the jungle cat and bees swarm,
Our hens are stationed under the wooden platforms,
Where I cuddle with my mummy half naked, not by choice,
The rain forest has the canopy for us to be dry, to rejoice,
The smell of kerosene lit lamps and burnt woods,
The perfect scent that anyone can breathe in our abode,
The precious colorful beads are shells and seeds,
We blame the spirits for our every illness,
We cream our nerves with herbs of green,
We wall for miles to go to a school sponsored,
Our books are always wet when we return,
Riding the boats in the dancing rivers,
Where the monkeys play with their relatives,
When the air from the north goes down to south,
Where my poor parents toil to be alive,
We have contributed nothing to the mankind,
As the satellites are not ours, but the stars,
Our trees exist as we exist as poor and deprived.
veeraiyah subbulakshmi
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-child-from-the-rain-forest/