To My Child Poem by Sharad Rajimwale

I touch the toys that you left on the shelves
and forgot
before leaving home.
They are still there and I run my fingers over them
silently staring at them.
The books that I stood in long queues to buy for you
are stacked in a heap in the dark corner
bearing your laborious writings...
I still laugh at them as I did when
you were so small...
Perched on my lap you took hell of a time
working over spellings and my heart was filled with
all the sunshine that your growing up brought.
Your clothes, so small, have remained folded since you grew up and forgot them
and I still keep them...
My eyes lit up looking at this world of your childhood
that appears now to have gone out of orbit.
I know you do not remeber many things
that I still live amidst and drw my sustenance from.

Now you come home and unlatch your laptop
and forget everything.
Between a small hug at your coming and going
there has grown a world that is entirely yours.
You can no longer sit on my lap and learn words
nor stare a long time in my eyes
to see if I am angry or pleased.

I stand on the very edge of that world that has no use to you now
and watch this new world that absorbs you so completely (without me standing beside you) .
Do you feel my absence?
by Sharad Rajimwale
Jodhpur, India