Mother Water – Diana Binte Abdul Rahim

Standing on the old beach,
I must have begun thinking
after the tide came in –
I do not know for sure.

All i knew was
that stretch of blue;
that endless still skin.

Blankets of waves fluttering;
settling continuously on the
bed of the shore.

It was the soft, wet sand
and moist rocks. The smell of salt
that wafted even in the trees.

I thought about how we were fishes
before we were human. How our fingers are slightly webbed; a souvenir from evolution.

How we are 70% water
and looking at the ocean
always makes me feel
homesick.

Somewhere,
a family returns their dead
to the sea. A child returning
to her other mother.

Slipping back into the blue;
her vast, rippling womb.

It doesn’t need to be
the Ganges, or death,
for us to swim towards
the reflected moon.

To float in her embryo,
taste the salt of her
blue blood.

To drown in this
watery version
of belonging.