086.Inheritance Of Loss Poem by rajagopal haran

(Dear Readers, my relative is working in a foreign land; his mother died on 18 11 09; as we are aware due to reasons of ticket availability, financial condition the eldest son who was to perform the last rites, could not come to India; I got into his shoes and wrote this poem; I was crying throughout while I wrote as I myself, a motherless person, know the pangs of pain when we lose mother, the love-incarnate)

Sitting alone in the backyard
Brooding deep into myself so vast
Harsh reality hitting so hard
Try to find solace
In the screaming of the birds from a distant peach tree

My hand not in my control
Is rising for alms
For the morsel of food laden with love
From the sweet hands of my mother!

Making effort to speak in air
To commune with mother with no form hence,
For the fill of love that is null and void!

Oh my mom!
Can’t you see your son?
Neigh you are there
But I have lost my vision!

Tears roll down
Blocking fast my eyes
Blurring clear the fact
That you are no more there for me
Who will console me?

When the whole world was there
Bidding good bye to you,
Making final bath to your mortal remains
Draping you in saree
Applying vermillion on your lovely face
And tying you on the bed
Final for the mortals,
I was not there even as a spectator!
Can’t even claim mute!
Like a rat held in a cage
My soul started brattling,
Thrashing all the vessels
Inside the walls of my blood stream!

Oh mummy they carried you
For the journey final they call
This sinner could not reach you
With this form good for nothing!

When they laid you on the pyre
Arranging woods all over,
Kith and kin crying
Circumambulating thy body!
Nobody to share with me
The minute to minute commentary!
I did not have my Sanchaya,
To tell me about the final fire,
That was added to your body glorious
I never knew when you turned to ashes!

All the sons collect the bones
Remaining after the horrid final rite!
Soaking them in tears
Then dissolve them in water!

I was not destined to carry out
Such a least act a son can do!
Why mother this injustice to me
Where I shall pour these pains aloud?

Feeling hungry dear mummy!
But nothing drops beyond the throat
Every gulp reminds about you
How shall I fill the gap so vide?

In the sharp edges of the leaves
I don’t see your love mummy!
Neither the sweet fragrance of your lap
Nor the smell of the soil during the October rains!

Won’t I hear your voice on the phone?
Asking me to take care of self?
You failed your words that
You would come and see me here
In this foreign land!
Oh I know you have come now
To this foreign land
To see you’re your son desolate like a pitiable worm!

When I come home there
Where will you be?
Hiding in the kitchen to make delicacies for me?
Will I get the coffee-
Flavored with thy divine love?
Mummy! Why did you leave so fast in haste?
I am pining in pain at the loss of thy form!
Won’t you stop my tears by your golden hands?
I am ready to die for that simple act mummy!



29 11 09