Mangrove Girl

Up in the mangrove everything makes sense to her. 

The chatty bulbul with the daily mangrove happenings: 

“A baby snail got up a tree and got stuck 

Its bright red bottom dangerously exposed 

There was the noisy affair of the marriage 

Of a cousin thrice removed 

Of His Highness the Cicada King 

And the crabs again in complete chaos 

Their mud’s blocked up by another dam 

They’re asking for you to look into that…” 

But among her own kind everything is a mess, 

A common tongue of undecipherable squawks 

PreCalc 

                               World Wars 

        Fahrenheit 451 

            Microscopy 

Essays Homework 

                 

“Weirdo” 

boyfriends? mean girls 

Make-up  malls short skirts 

This little dove peeps hopefully through her wings 

At offered hands 

that look like claws 

And retracts back whenever she can 

To the canopies and cacophonies she knows so well 

Through the portal to her mangrove spot 

Where the bulbul gently takes her wings 

Ebbs salty streams of human tears 

Saying, “Hide from your kind 

You can never do. We’re here for you   

But you’re not one of us 

This is your battle to fight 

But we’ll always fly right behind you.” 

Her world was not made to fit those of her mould 

But the mangrove enfolds her in a snug embrace 

For she is a mangrove girl 

(A kind her kind cannot understand) 

The mangrove 

Where every creature has to flounder 

Thigh-deep in murky bogwater, 

Get down from every tree they climb on, 

   Hide from predators 

Flex those pincers 

And 

get ready for another day’s 

struggle

Ramaa Rangnekar (Class of 2024) dreams up story plots which rise to at least twice her height. Travelling is her truest love. Her poem ‘The Pieta’ responds to a beautiful sculpture she saw in Italy from three perspectives – combining her love for writing with her love for travelling.