Do you have a favourite place you have visited? Where is it?
I sat on the beach at Kovalam
Watching India go by
For life comes to you
If you sit very long
Beside the Keralan Sea.
The fishermen first
Will catch your eye
Pushing out their boats.
They cast their nets
Swing back to shore
Dragging the nets behind.
And the tourists join in
As they pull the nets in
Beside the Keralan sea.
And the cameras click
As they pull the fish out
And they wriggle live on the shore.
A red and white lighthouse
Surveys the scene
From its perch up on the rock.
And palm trees line
The sandy beach
Along the Keralan shore.
If it’s shopping you want
There’s no need to move
Besides the Keralan sea.
Sit where you are
No need to shift
The shops will come to you.
With acres of cloth
Or fruit on their heads
The sellers will come to you.
If it’s not what you want
There are ‘sin’ glasses too
Or reading if you prefer.
Families come and swim fully clothed
Saris and all in the sea.
They all have such fun
And bring gran along
As they splash and have fun in the sea.
Nuns will appear,
with children who play
Their habits of every hue
And the whole of the beach
Is a colourful scene
Playing in front of you.
On a darker note
There are youths who run
With abandon into the sea.
They have made themselves drunk
Have not learned to swim
And all too easily drown.
Police whistle and shout
And call the kids in
Warning of Kerala’s currents.
If you’ve not learned to swim
You shouldn’t go in
And risk those dangerous tides.
If you sit long enough
A goat or a cow willwander on up
And want to make friends with you.
You could get bored on a Keralan beach
But God only just how.
Andrew Green's Poems 