Her Porch Poem by Santosh Bakaya

HER PORCH

She sat in her porch, talking to the tiny birds
As memories slowly encroached
from the rusted, creaky swing in the garden.
"Oh, beg your pardon,
little bird, what did you just tweet?
Oh that was sweet."
The butterflies perched on blades of grass,
stopped for a moment, then slowly passed.
Many a memory hung from her eyelash, white.
She flicked one away, with one arthritic knuckle.
Ah, that chortle and chuckle, so endearing, so searing.
In stolid silence, sat she, steering those chirpy memories
In the alleys of a darkening confusion.
How could memories be so talkative?
So, so …very talkative?
Lisping away every crisp dawn, creating a ruckus in the verdant lawn
On and on of an era bygone?
She mumbled a lullaby and put them to sleep.
But, oh, naughty, memories, all over her, stealthily did creep.
Hush, whose frisky feet were they?
Gliding effortlessly on the squelchy, mud, pray?
Swaying to the music of the spirited breeze [Ah, a tease! ]
How they hollered, chasing the dove collared.
Playing hide and seek, and ring-a - ring-o'- roses.
The sun above remembered everything, perhaps.
The hugs, the kisses, the cuddles, the mishaps.
It shone with retrospective warmth, hence.

Ouch, the bursitis in her hip pained,
but unnerved, the memories rained.
The frisky feet of yore, now arthritic, hobbled forth
on the cobbled driveway, a teeter- a totter, a stagger.
Isn't that the way we all fall down with that final rasp,
the last wobble; buckling down of one arthritic knee.
Then another.Then the final gasp.