April 16, 2016

MOTHER'S DAY BY SHIV K KUMAR

MOTHER'S DAY BY SHIV K KUMAR

We do it differently

in this dark continent.

Not just once a year

a string of spurious verses

ensconced in a bouquet

shaped like Chinese house of dreams.

My mother is more demanding -

an obeisance at each sunrise,

like a devotee throwing a handful

of yellow rice to the birds.

Holding a candelabrum before an idol,

Just once a year

Is desecrating it.

Whenever I see a caterpillar slouching

towards a pansy's eye,

or hear ancestral voices in a wind's howl,

I invoke my deity -

sometimes twice a day.