The World from my Window: Three Poems by Mary Tina Shamli Pillay

Photo: Karan Madhok

Poetry: ‘Often dreams / Collide but they swiftly / Comply, dusting sorrows / Off their wired feet’

- Mary Tina Shamli Pillay

The World from my Window

The window sill

Was cold and bare

With the tall glass jar

Perched on one end

Waiting for the sun

To turn on.

I took my place

To watch

What the window

Was framing for me that day.

Endless ants

From a purging hole

That keeps its promise—

They true to theirs,

Laden with the goal to arrive,

And deliver. Often dreams

Collide but they swiftly

Comply, dusting sorrows

Off their wired feet

At times,

Partaking of grief

At other times.

They halt, of course,

But only for a cause

Staggering, the goal

Has to be offloaded

And so the move goes on.

* 

Sunrise on the Streets

I arise to a beautiful sunrise perfumed

with the fresh aroma of ground coffee that I

pour from a machine into my favourite

porcelain cup made of fine China. The 

street below is still asleep as rising steam

from the old vendor’s cart clouds the pristine

morning air, and the freshly baked buns

announce their presence to every passer-by.

Beyond the rim of my porcelain cup, a pup

wakes to his sunrise on the street. He awakes

to hunger. The warm meals he sniffs, he

cannot possess, and he knows not that

everything has a price—the biscuits he so

craves, the little space he so seeks, the love

he so desires. Sunrise on the street, and on

most streets, is silent; in silence, the pup

consumes his hunger.

*

The Cuckoo

The cuckoo flits warmth

To the flames of the forest.

Summer has arrived!  

***

Mary Tina Shamli Pillay’s poems and stories have appeared on BBC Radio, Kitaab, The Mean Journal, Blink-Ink, Borderless Journal, and elsewhere. Her first book of poems, I Met a Feather, was published in 2023. She enjoys exploring different forms of fiction and poetry. Tina is a Teacher, Language Editor and Political Enthusiast. She grew up in Oman before moving back to India. She now lives in Chennai, India, and can be contacted at: mtspillay@gmail.com and followed on Instagram @marytinashamlipillay.