Professed striving, thriving in kitchen life
Woman of yesterday was a home maid
Call her not a homemaker or housewife
A home maid unpaid and future benighted
Illiterate slave literate in home science
Deprived of finance for days ahead
Suppressed in fearful negligence
Dear and near, not to be truly so supposed
Necessity out of such a pity
Woman of olden time
Saved in her kitty
Annas, paise to chime.
Unreally smiling out of disguised injustice
Done to her by a domestic law
To herself collected coins, fortune to splice
Woman of moral law
Begotten parental assets begotten
Life raised husband and his folks
Counting her collection the woman forlorn
From mercy somebody the beseeched alms
Her pouch of coins didn't change
Unchanged the least quantum amount too
No depositing, no investing to challange
No interest, no dividend to woo
Passed on from husband to son
Hopes on despair built
Survival of a grand-ma's funeral now to shun.
Stealthily on money matters spoken about.
On her couch of death
Ready to depart her pouch.
Struggling through her last breath
Her savings presented to her funeral march
I like the repetition and aliteration in this. It makes for a real musicality that underlies the anger of the narrative. The final line is an excellent ending and show great restraint in its usage.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
she has saved for her death expense...you don't get to see true indian poems which brings out the life style of indian woman[not now].in this site..you have presented it very well mam....thank you again madam for the support and appreciation you have given me right from beginning...even in tamil i saw to it that in my poem the word don't carry the poem..it is the thought..which i thought should be poetic and for a person like me not very rich in poetic vocabulary..this suited me..iam lucky that the english most of them write in simple language..regarding subjects i think you also deal with a variety...i have tried a few senryu's 5-7-5 which i learnt from carl harris and sandra maitryes, , try them