I will never see a sunset as pink,

As the candy floss clouds over emerald mounds,

In the sanctuary I have made my home out to be,

Where I was so desperate to escape,

I now long to come back to,

The call of the koel at the break of dawn,

The sound of the azan and the bread man’s horn,

The sharp whistles of steam from lentils cooking,

Greetings spoken in Malay and gossip in Tamil overheard,

The smell of spices blooming over bluebell flames,

The fragrance of pandan in my kuehs,

And the roses and jasmines we kept by the altar,

Along with the sandalwood incense we burned on Fridays,

And the taste of rich sweet palm sugar and grated coconut,

Eaten with steamed rice cakes of every form,

And the sour of young green mangoes in fish curries,

That were scattered across my garden like unpolished gems,

These tastes dangle precariously from my tongue,

As if they were on the verge of falling into a ravine,

Of memories so far away I fear I will never retrieve them,

Distant as a recluse in my own cluttered brain,

I have never felt so far from home,

From the soil that nourished my family tree,

Dispersing its seeds without care,

All because its branches are spreading too wide,

And afraid to take root elsewhere

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Cover image by Richard Hunter-Rice / Pexels. The copyright of ‘Home’ belongs to Rishi Lawrence.