Mom Dearest

A pang of pain must be washed away inside the baptismal waters of poetry before I could write another word about my mom. She died in Pakistan, while I was here in USA./ Like the gnarled olive branches/ My soul/ Twisted in precious memories/ Gazes at my Mother/ Sick, helpless, dying—alone/ While I/ Gulfs apart in time, continents/ Write, write, write/ Boundless vacuums in life/ Empty days and dream nights/ Drift, journey, reach out/ One link to gentleness/ Mother/ How exquisitely tender/ The sense of pain/ The ribbon of reveries snaps/ Despair and isolation/ Agony most dear/ Mom dearest/ Could you tell me again/ Love hurts not/ Love is—not pain/ Would you write/ Just this once/ I live/ Love,/ Mom/ Mom cultivated in me the love for song and poetry, and love for words. / Not just words, but warm, soothing words filled with the light of joy and inspiration./ Paradoxically her love sweet and boundless became my haven and prison both for me that is./ I couldn’t endure the thought of being separated from her even for one day./ One particular incidence still brings tears to my eyes, when recollection seizes me with the pincers of loss and grief./ Though the incidence itself was not tragic!/ My cell of a prison was my college dorm, my first night away from home pressing upon me like the slabs of ice./ Mom was staying with friends, promising to visit me the next day before she returned home./ So terrified and lonesome I was in my unfriendly room that I cried myself to sleep. / The morning was no better than the night rigged with nightmares, and I had attended classes in some daze of pain and disconsolation./ A realization, rather revelation was dawning upon me that since I had never been away from mom, I had never known that how terrible and devastating this experience could be./ Afternoon was a long, dreary journey from corridors to classrooms. / And as I was hurrying back, rather fleeing to my lonesome refuge, I could see my mom sailing toward me gracefully. / In a flash, my feet had taken wings, and before I knew I had fallen into her eager embrace, weeping and sobbing./ So loud and uncontrollable was my distress that the men working in the yard had stopped their work, their eyes riveted to us./ Has someone died in your family, madam? One gardener was bold enough to ask my mom./ Since mom didn’t answer, still pressing me closer with an aching tenderness, another young man edged closer./ Why is she crying? The man stood anxious and solicitous./ Fortunately, no death in the family! Mom flashed him a sunny smile./ Just left her here last evening, and made the mistake of visiting her today?/ After returning home, mom began the crusade of instructing me in the art of living through her witty letters sealed with commandments./ This kind of learning was another painful revelation, but she guided me lovingly and pontifically. / Her letters had become my talisman, lending me the courage to graduate and then get married./ Continents away I was separated from her, but her letters kept coming, inspiring me with the need to write and befriend words which would be my friends forever./ Though the word-friends had abandoned me in my grief and misery at her death, yet I could be consoled with her words./ The beautiful memory of her had become a living proof of her love that she gave me all, becoming My All in pain and inspiration. / Mother’s day still clouds my eyes with the mists of tears, but I offer them to her sweet memory with one prayer of a caress./ Love you, Mom, Forgive!