The Edict Of Life Poem by Ajit Das

I was a foetus: the future
of womanhood, growing
in the warmth of your womb,
cradled in a web of dreams:
for you the caring motherhood,
for me an ever receding skyline.

Suddenly something happened;
you started miscarrying;
frantically your fingers moved
over the belly to feel
if my heart was beating.
A faint, assuring movement
throbbed beneath your palm.
Then it grew fainter and fainter,
ceasing to pulsate any longer.

And you asked for a termination.
But they denied you the choice:
an insentient foetus
still a precious gift of God,
forbidden for expulsion.

Agony prolonged; then, at last,
your life, a divine gift too,
was aborted instead;
a painful, senseless death
shattered dreams on the altar of edict.

* Written on Savita Halappanavar who died
of septicaemia in Galway, Ireland, after being
denied a potentially life-saving abortion three
years back and now the abortion law held against
human rights by the Belfast High Court.