Bereavement Poem by anujan raja

Bereavement

I was not there when my father passed away,
I was not there when my mother passed away,
I cried twice, but to no avail
I heard and heard twice
Voices from far away
Voices of bitter reprimand.
Back home they said,
Distance, great distance kept her away.
- She could hop on a flight
And be right here in half a day's time,
Another voice, heavy with grief.


Time and distance have conspired,
Blood-ties no longer hold,
Father and daughter,
Mother and daughter.
Blood-links ruptured
When? I probe for an answer
And find none.

Seventeen years,
Seventeen long years here
This, the land of opulence and opportunities
I still find alien.
My culture, my legacy,
The rituals I follow-
I have borne this bundle of absurdities
And lived on here, still the strange
Land of opulence and opportunities.

Money was the excuse
Money is the excuse still,
The excuse, the unspoken excuse.
The more you make and get
The more you want to make and get.


The voices have faded
The faces now look hazy
My kin? where are they now?
Lock'd in some old photographs,
The shadows on the tiny screen
Mottl'd, murky shapes
Disfigur'd by Time's relentless fungal attack,
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