My Father's Bench! Poem by Veeraiyah Subbulakshmi

Dad was sitting on the bench in the verandah,
Looking at the people who passed by the road,
He might have been searching for the children,
That he had reared and sent them to foreign,
As the wedded blissful young brides and grooms,
The silhouette of him getting bigger and smaller in routine,
Lonely he was, rubbing the hands of the hardened skin,
He was a man of few words, whom I forgot all of a sudden,
When my heart was newly occupied by few other hearts,
I wrote letters to him once in a while, apart from greetings,
when the scene has changed after a few decades,
I am Standing here alone and looking throw the windows,
People seem to be having only heads and shadows,
I may need the bench of my father to put near the sliding door,
Of the balcony of the apartment to watch the ants crawling,
Down the street, not even privileged to see their faces,
not blessed to have our village visitors to arrive at any minute.