My Grandma’s House

This stately home built with care

A crumbling old lady now looking sad

Her pre-war glamour in dire straits

Peeling aged skin her beauty once great

Her towering columns laid to waste

Layers of paint of different shades

Repainted with love again and again

Once a beholding lady of a majestic reign

My grandma’s house time of
a golden age

Childhood years my life’s happiest page

Last day of school the begin of our holiday

Our adventures not to waste another day

Siblings and cousins fifteen in number

The spacious house and its peace we’ll plunder

Of ages six to thirteen
A formidable army we’ve been

Up and down we run in a chase

The sprawling teak wood staircase

Our sister lost six of her milk teeth

A tumble she took down the stairs teak

And a host of other misadventures major

Our grandma’s hair the grayer

A matriarch of kind but firm

With a cane she walks just to look stern

But her servants a couple of old

Dread the day we tread our feet bold

Not to mention the extra workful

And the food to be cooked in cauldrons full

A good hideout this house of massive

A boisterous game of hide and seek

Our t.v. hours was of restrict

The box was locked on orders strict

A well stacked library of our favourite books

Sprawled we’ll be on the carpet and the nooks

Greek mythology and Nights Arabian

Secret Seven, Famous Five and novels Western

The plays we’ve staged the read after

Hold our bellies rocking with laughter

Of the fruit laden trees surround we’ve climbed

Stuff our faces with jambu, mango and rambutan

The giant kuih man a hollering call from far

The ice-kacang man a beeline make or we’d starve!

O! Why did I take this lane of memories

My heart with nostalgia constrict

If I had a time machine to hold

I’ll go back to halcyon times of old

Our grandma to hold her tight never to let her go

To savour every second of gold

This wonderful lady who’ll wait for the hols to come

Into her loving arms we’d be welcome

Alas! She’s no more

And her home of love is not loved anymore

The remaining ones of not so welcoming

Our visits in time of lessening

For there’ll never be another lady

Like her from now to eternity

I await the day I’ll get to meet her again

A tearful reunion, her love I’ll regain!

By: Mariam Bee, Ipoh, Perak