On 28th March. (My mother's birthday)
Poem for Mrs De Bhaumik
Once of 6 Mayfair Road
Very nice and fair of face
Who dwelt in her quiet abode.
Children two. Husband one...
And always a maid or two
A flower vase a looking glass
Daddy's doe eyed sweetheart true.
Heavenly plans plotted ill health
Took away precious mental wealth
But heart's gold it couldn't touch
Or at least not so very much.
Today's dwelling is not so grand
Though still on prime viable land
Sixty eight years of experience
Life of a long suffering saint.
Someone's caring mother someone's beloved wife
Someone's adored daughter,
Oh! In lost days from sweet long ago,
in some faraway life...
Long lost past, few steadfast friends
Now these are silent days
Of sweet self denial
Time's autumnal lent.
In her now a purity
A frostbitten beauty
Spare clean frame
Cleansed of dubious ambition and mottled dreams
Life's mighty and meaningless games.
Only a sharp clarity,
Annals of duties performed
Chapters of debts repaid ten fold
The messy challenging chapters closed
A soft focus eventide bubble around her.
A halo benign of rose kissed gold.
I hear you loud and clear my lady mother
Such a gentle lonesome song
Please let me tuck you
And these your softest wondering evensongs
In gentlest leaves of my gaping heart...
Gashed with wounds wondrous
Stigmata of sacred love.
At her home...Mrs De Bhaumik
Receives birthday wishes
Dreams a dozen chiming, upon stolid ring after telephone ring.
For quietly insignificant little ladies
Leave deeply tender tracks
Upon innocent hearts tended in their merciful hearths.
My poem for the lady is for now complete.
For now,
Because I suspect,
I will be writing to her,
My mother,
For the rest of my life.
(c) Amrita Valan 2016
