Return Journey of Moonlight

1.

Mother is sleeping in
mortuary’s freezer
closed eyes
hands on chest
ready for purification in fire

Behind the glass cover
her closed eyes are
two butterflies sleeping
We feel as if they will flutter
at any moment
and forget to cry

2.

Geeta takes us
beyond death
After the fourteenth chapter

Mother's bed is empty
Where is she?
Under the glass?
Or sitting here
somewhere
listening to the Geeta
which she asked me to read
long long ago

We are not able to cry
Not even smile
But cannot be quiet
She comes in our talk
In our tears
And sometime in a smile
We feel her presence everywhere

3.

Forty-eight hours passed
on the iced bed
She had arthritis
Is this not too much cold for her?

Today she must go
Not by walking, she has forgotten how to walk for years
Not with the support of that stick she never liked
But on four shoulders
as she came in palaki after marriage

Mother is taking a bath
but why on the bed?
Mother is wearing clothes
while sleeping
Mother is getting ready
on the wooden structure

“You still have swelling on your right foot
how will you climb so many steps”?
Asks her daughter


She didn’t stop
She started her journey to make
fire more pious

Don’t cry mother asked us
This time rain came early
Sky did not know perhaps

4.

Mother's horoscope
in the lap of Geeta
old and crumbled
falls down as soon as
someone touches the paper
Every daughter has her own experience
And her own smell of memories
of mother
I am trying to peep in the corners
which are broken down
and find the life she lost

5.

Knots are open
Pot is broken
Wood is laid around
Grandson has given his offering to her fire

“May the doors of heaven”
elder daughter asked her god
Youngest one cried for
her lost nest

“Mother of daughter
is a queen”
Father's saying became
alive

6.

Mother liked the river
and its banks
the boats on banks
the swing of boats
a bath in river
and her own Krishna deity

Mother who is hidden in a small bag
was so happy to meet her friend river

There came a moon shadow
and then a bubble
Life is over

7.

She was the story
which is finished

She was power
which is diminished

She was moonlight
which went back

She was a chapter
which is closed