The night moon was sending a shaft of golden light into the room
Of vast and peculiar kind of a gloom

Nightingales were twittering inside a banyan tree
Singing, voices enchanted, chirruped within me

Have you ever heard, of a story, of the moon and the old lady
My mother used to tell me as a bribe to eat as a baby

Look at the moon, there’s an old lady sitting
She climbed to the moon as gently as her legs could be

Bringing a basket full of vadai, tea, prattling
‘There is nothing but darkness and chaos without tea’
‘Everything stops for a tea’,
served
and smiled with crooked teeth.

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Cover image sourced from Danie Franco / Unsplash. The copyright of ‘The Old Lady and The Moon’ belongs to Sheila Ann Packirnathan.