Nimisha (Poetrysoup International Contest Winner) Poem by FABIYAS M V

In her layette, she looked fair.
‘Nimisha’, the parents called her.
When aged five, the polio plucked
the strings that her legs moved.
As a stringless violin, her legs rest.
In the wheelchair, she grows up
along with her mother’s tension,
and father’s anxiety.

The rustic children wish her
but nobody takes her
to the festival
in a shrine rural.
She wears new dress
but as the butterflies in her frock,
she also cannot flit
to the shrine yard.

Cough waves, today also,
shake her lungs so.
The distant drumbeats and the holy music
move her fingers in the wind rhythmic.
The clarion does resonate and ripple
the divine thoughts in her ears.
She never knew
pneumonia packing her soul.

Serenity of the twilight collapses
as, again, the drum storm develops.
Few knew Nimisha swooned.
Later, the people intoned,
“Being holy,
an apt day it is.”
In emptiness infinite,
her parents knew her truly.