Andha (1990 - 2001) Poem by Joydeep Sircar

We who had loved you abandoned you at the end.
Sunk in our individual miseries,
a failing family betrayed a trust, lost that
one true enduring selfless love it had found:
the love of a small, weak, helpless, self-willed cat.

You died among strangers who cared as best they could
for your well-being. But we were not there.
It was not in my arms that your body stilled.
No stoic acceptance, no consolation of maya,
no hope of reunion when brightness falls from the air
expiates that guilt.