MOTHER
I
Qul lil mumineena yaghuddoo min absarihim
Sons of Adam,
you have failed me,
you have failed me and your God who
have told you to do since the Olden days.
to tunduk, lower your gaze
Respect the lineage of Eve, of Hawa,
Jadi tundukkan pandangan mata
was what God commanded you
but that you did not do
Instead you have called me names
that never once belonged to me
I've been called a hantu, anak syaitan.
To you I was the wild and unkempt demon who kidnapped kids too curious to stay indoors at dusk so I hid them
underneath my monstrous breasts
and watched as they kicked, screamed and gasped
Like I really have nothing else better to do.
II
None of these names
come close to the ones that I was given.
You see I was the first woman
your eyes laid upon.
My heartbeats,
the only thing that could lull you to sleep.
You have called me ibu,
mama, bonda, mak, and ummi
Yes, your mother who sang you those lullabies at night. Your mother and
I always, always nurture my children.
But now you identify me
by the first thing that your fallen eyes see
You obsess instead over the dimensions
of my breasts
Throw names into the air like Hantu Tetek and Hantu Kopek
Through your giggles, cringes and laughters You disrespect me.
Forgetting everything I have taught you since you were young,
well let me refresh your memory, sayang.
You did not laugh when you were hungry for milk
Instead you cried as loud as you could
Not out of love but out of a genuine fear of death.
Let me remind you the power
of a woman's wrath
through the stories of these names
as I know how to tell them best.
III
Contrary to popular belief,
I am more than the sum of my parts.
Certainly I am more than just this part of my body.
God who taught Adam the names of all things did not show him a woman
only to hear him say, "breasts"
do not laugh, sit down
Read your holy book
Iqra wa rabbukal akram
and certainly Adam knew what he meant
when he called me
The Mother of All Living Things.
I sing stories of the divine femininity
Maybe that's why men fear me.
Perhaps I remind them
that they came out from the in-between
of their mother's shivering thighs, that they've survived simply from the nourishments of their mother's tits.
I represent all the things
that you do not understand.
I am the great mystery.
So you desire to tame me.
IV
If fear of a name
only increases fear of the thing itself.
Then fear me.
For my name is Mahsuri
whose gushes of darah putih
caused by the tombak
not the rage of the keris
was not blood but the milk that was meant for her child.
As how the milk was drained from her body
so too did her curse dry up the fertile soils of Langkawi.
Fear me for my name is Bumi,
You have called me Gaia,
I am still your Ibu Pertiwi.
Fear me for I am the mother of all your prophets
I am Yokhebed. The mother of Moses.
I am Mariam. The mother of Jesus.
I am Hagar. I am Hajar,
si ibu yang berlari dari bukit ke bukit,
mencari air untuk diminum oleh aku,
bukan si Ismail.
The miracle of zamzam was not for my son but for me so that I could in turn feed him back into existence.
I am Paradise,
I am Jannah,
Feeha anharun min ma-in ghayri asinin
wa anharun min labanin lam yataghayyar
Far from the sins of hell's fire,
I have rivers of water and milk
of which their taste never change.
So why would you think you can
change my names?
V
All the parts of my sum
Was created by a very generous God.
The same God who told you then
and still tells you now to
Tunduk
MOLES
Lower your gaze
and show some respect
to your mother.
By the time I was ten years old
a number of moles have already made
my body and my face, their home.
I have one on the middle of my forehead
one on the corner of my right eye
one under my bottom lip
one on the left side of my chest
one on my finger and
one on the surface of my sole
the very same one found by my father
when I was just 3 months old
Oh how I dreamt of these moles
falling off me like leaves
on a hot sticky summer day
but from primary to high school
these moles have decided to stay
and oh,
if I was ever given the freedom to choose
I would have chosen sticks and stones
I would have let them break my bones
for that would have been better
than having those mean names
finding their way from Monday to Friday
just to hurt and haunt me
So gradually
I began to find comfort in the outskirts
of my imagination
You can call it "defense mechanism"
Like that first time
when I saw the beautiful Kuan Yin and Green Tara
I knew that just like them
my mole is a third eye endowed with divine power
and if I squinted my eyes hard enough
I could actually see glimpses of Nirvana
Or that time
when I saw the giant statue of the sleeping Buddha
I wanted to be just like him
so I closed my eyes, slept in the very same position
and I tried to accept all those sufferings at school
as just facets of Samsara
because this is the best way for me to cleanse my Karma
this is how I should embrace my Dharma
and sometimes
Sheena the Muslim would morph into Sheena the Hindu
and I would strut around thinking
"Here I am with my very own fabulous pottu,"
which is a marking only found
on the forehead of feisty deities
it is a symbol of an Eastern civilisation
ancient and almighty
so I would watch those bullies and knew
that just like the mighty goddess Kali, I too
could dance all of them into annihilation
See me scatter them like dust
with my own rhythmic
anger, fury and wrath
(but I wouldn't and I shouldn't)
for I am the Trimurti
I have the beginning, the middle
and the ending inside of me
I am Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva
I am creator, preserver, destroyer
I am benign thus I am kind
and even if I could not speak Tamil
it's not like I did not give it a try
But that was a long time ago.
Now, who knows?
I might just remove these moles earlier than I plan to do so
and when the time comes for me to let them go
I will still write to each and every one of them
an epitaph for me to engrave
on their imaginary tombstones
For this mole is indeed a third eye
allowing me to see you for who you are my dear
and this mole makes me see everything
with a child like wonder
and this mole reminds me to smile
and always speak good of others
and this mole marks the spot for me to move on
and forgive all of my errs
and this mole gives me poetry
when normal speech just would not work
and this mole on the surface of my sole
has brought me to all the places
I have arrived and departed
and this soul under the surface of my moles
has brought me into the arms
of all those I have loved wholehearted
with all my body
with all my soul
and my considerable number
of moles.
