ODE TO A WATER LILY by Malachi Edwin Vethamani

ODE TO A WATER LILY

Malachi Edwin Vethamani

You stand singularly straight

a whiteness among the green.

Your petals unfurled

now strike outwards

each firmly hold its own.

As the day draws on

you are in fullness.

Then slowly you recede

into yourself to a tightness.

Your respite is brief

and with a new morn

you replay your loveliness.

A crowning show

then no more.

Your once straight stem

now lies slant and soft

beauty spent now still.

In the water the guppies

nibble and shelter

while you waste away.

Malachi Edwin Vethamani from Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is a Malaysian Indian professor, teacher trainer, poet, writer, critic and bibliographer.