'A Hand' Poem by Pushpinder Kaur

A Hand

A hand reaches out to me,
groping for a silent support
Every night,
The yet, strong and firm hand,
although the body and mind
are frailed by
the cruel hands of time.
The feel and touch of it known only too well,
The hand that patted my little head to sleep…
The exact memory of which lives somewhere
In the sub-conscious.

This is the strong and determined Hand
that erected the Bathinda Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Plant
in Punjab, India
And its four massive cooling towers;
This was the hand that brought electricity first
to the mountainous region
of Kulu Manali, stretching the power lines
across the hazardous mountain ranges,
Or in 1950, across the desert area of Hisar;
The self same strong hand of steel
reinforced the Power lines
All through Himachal
Pathankot, Joginder Nagar, Barot and the Winch,
And, the Bhakra Hydel Project.

The timeless hand of my esteemed Father,
That never left the hand of my dearest Mother
Looks for solace in the once tiny hand
Now, when I have the blessing
to be beside him
Restricted, by the cruel hands of time-
which makes it, as limited as can be;

For being a daughter, I can moan silently
In agony and shrivel in the pains
But my destiny limits me with chains
Of Time
As it binds my offerings with its cruel hands.
So it is to be a daughter…



In dedication to my Dear FatherPushpinder Kaur18.5.18