I am a tribal child, living in the forest thrones, <br />Where fireflies light the mangrove crowns, <br />The sago trees are here to be the granules of starch, <br />The hungry crocodiles in the water look for our tiny limbs, <br />The glittering eyes of the jungle cat and bees swarm, <br />Our hens are stationed under the wooden platforms, <br />Where I cuddle with my mummy half naked, not by choice, <br />The rain forest has the canopy for us to be dry, to rejoice, <br />The smell of kerosene lit lamps and burnt woods, <br />The perfect scent that anyone can breathe in our abode, <br />The precious colorful beads are shells and seeds, <br />We blame the spirits for our every illness, <br />We cream our nerves with herbs of green, <br />We wall for miles to go to a school sponsored, <br />Our books are always wet when we return, <br />Riding the boats in the dancing rivers, <br />Where the monkeys play with their relatives, <br />When the air from the north goes down to south, <br />Where my poor parents toil to be alive, <br />We have contributed nothing to the mankind, <br />As the satellites are not ours, but the stars, <br />Our trees exist as we exist as poor and deprived.<br /><br />veeraiyah subbulakshmi<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-child-from-the-rain-forest/
