Monsoon History

The air is wet, soaks
Into mattresses, and curls
In apparitions of smoke.
Like fat white slugs furled
Among the timber,
Or sliver fish tunneling
The damp linen covers
Of schoolbooks, or walking
Quietly like centipedes,
The air walking everywhere
On its hundred feet
Is filled with the glare
Of tropical water

Again we are taken over
By clouds and rolling darkness.
Small snails appear
Clashing their timid horns
Among the morning glory
Vines.

Drinking milo,
Nyonya and baba sit at home.
This was forty years ago.
Sarong-wrapped they counted
Silver paper for the dead,
Portraits of grandfathers
Hung always in the parlour.
Reading Tennyson, at six
p.m. in pajamas,
Listening to down-pouring
rain; the air ticks
With gnats, black spiders fly,
Moths sweep out of our rooms
Where termites built
Their hills of eggs and queens zoom
In heat.
We wash our feet
For bed, watch mother uncoil
Her snake hair, unbuckle
The silver mesh around her waist,
Waiting for father pacing
The sands as fishers pull
From the Straits after monsoon.

The air is still, silent
Like sleepers rocked in the pantun,
Sheltered by Malacca
This was forty years ago,
When nyonya married baba.

Shirley Geok-lin Lim

Monsoon History

By Shirley Geok-lin Lim

1.Describe the air and what it does in lines 1-3.

It has been raining heavily and the air is filled with water vapour.The water vapour soaks into the mattresses causing them to be damp.

2.Why does the poet use the word “apparitions” to describe the air (line 3)?

The image of damp air is seen in the water vapour looking like circles of smoke.

5.Why do they hang the “portraits of grandfathers” in “the parlour”?

The family has great respect for their ancestors.

6. Why does the poet mention the ancestors and their portraits?

To show the customs and traditions of the Nyonya-baba family which respect their ancestors and preserving the family history.

7. What creatures does the poet see around her?

termites, black spiders, gnats

8.Why are these creatures associated with the “down-pouring rain”?

The creatures normally appear when it rains.

9.Why do you think this poem is called “Monsoon History”?

It tells about an old tradition of the Nyonya Baba family.

10.State 3 themes found in the poem.

a)Monsoon Season in Malacca

b) Family

c) The Nyonya Baba customs

10. State 3 moral values found in the poem.

a) We must know know and value our heritage

b) We must appreciate our home for it is a place of love and warmth.

c) Man and nature can live in harmony with one another.