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Realizing a fresh life growing inside,
What thoughts coursed through my mother’s mind?
Did she gleefully welcome the news?
Or respond to it with a violent shock?

So sure, right away after her fourth baby
With four little kids still needing care
Like chicks in a coop, carrying once again
Might not have been in her scheme of things

Thus at a time when she expected it the least,
Could she beckon the new life growing inside,
With a pleasant nod of head in assent
Or with a suppressed moan of fright, I wonder!

When from nausea she started to suffer
And threw up each time when she ate
Did she curse her man in silence?
Or grow mad with her children and her fate?

Slogging through those weary days
With no respite from her routine chores
Did she get enough rest or care?
Or did she languish without a hand to assist?

Seeing her with an extended waist line
Did some nosy neighbors behind her back
Teasingly utter in hushed whispers
‘Oh, she has done it again!’

Once when I started kicking inside
Was she tickled or greatly annoyed?
When she heard the first ‘lub- dub’ of my heart
Did she feel as two hearts singing in harmony?

As her tummy grew bigger everyday
And sleepless in bed as she tossed
Was she haunted by nightmares bleak?
Or was she visited by dreams of delight?

Travelling closer and closer to those final days
Did she curse herself seeing her in the mirror
Woefully bloated and ripened into a bulge
Or did she wait my arrival in blissful expectation?

Then suddenly one day when the earthquake began
In mild tremors first, then gaining in force
Did she scream mad or cry aloud?
Or did she endure the pain in austere silence?

Then abruptly when I showed myself up
Did she feel any remorse over my ***?
And see me as another liability
Added up to the girls already in line

No, I am sure she must have cuddled me close
And locked me in the warmth of her *****
For she was such a rare gift sent from heaven
A mother nonpareil in self effacing love
This poem, I thought would be interesting to many of you to have an idea of the cultural difference from country to country and to show how life was in the fifties and sixties for an average woman living in an Indian village

Being wife and mother, life was hardly easy for any woman in a patriarchal set up during those days. Child bearing was a routine affair and taking care of the children with none to help was her lot. Men who were the sole bread winners would be away at their place of work…! Even if at home, they hardly lend a helping hand. Girls were always marginalized and looked upon as a liability as they could be sent away in marriage only by giving huge amounts as dowry! Now things have changed and most of the women are employed and earning members!

  March 8th- when we celebrate the International Woman’s Day, I dedicate this poem to my dear mother whom I regard as a great woman and a paragon of love and care.
Spring clothes the Earth in silk of green
And parades her in a rare sheen
Summer gifts the plants with bloom
And causes the bees to hum and zoom
Autumn makes the leaves yellow
And blesses the season with fruits mellow
Winter brings hail and snow
With icy winds that blow and blow
Now as one round of seasons is about to complete and another to begin afresh, this is a thought over the seasons in their bare simplicity! So short that you can read it in a split second without batting an eyelash!
Humming a soft tune
came down the wind
With airy fingers,
it tousled my hair
Rubbing its cold cheeks
on mine, tickling me,
it reeled round
tugging at my skirt
like a naughty kid
and amorously lifting it up
like a lover
Like soft tendrils
it coiled all around me
inviting me for a waltz

Between hushed breaths
and murmured tones
it talked to me endless
whispering sweet nothings
in my attentive ear

I felt love pouring down on me

I wished to cage it
to enjoy its sweet company
But like an apparition,
it disappeared into thin air!

I couldn’t follow its trail
but as it passed, I saw
a tumbleweed tremble
far above the ground!
in our daily haste to not miss
sales, appointments, buses, flights,
we tend to overlook the world
that gives us all these options

the awe-inspiring heights of our mountains
frightening majesty of our seas
powerful forests breathing life
the elegance of animals
a pleasant view of cultivated land
even the buzzing habitat of cities

we may be only a small part of seven human billions
yet it behooves us well to be aware
     and celebrate
the fragile beauty of our world
Thanks to all of you who caused this poem to be trending - a very pleasant surprise! .-)
listening to Benny Goodman’s smooth version of  ”Tiger Rag”
composed at a time when tigers where not yet an endangered species
     when soldiers were dying in World War I
     and would die again soon after Benny first recorded it in the 1930s
    
I wonder how it is that music can be so divorced from death

maybe because, for the US, wars have always been fought elsewhere,
    except for the Civil War - an issue that still occupies two research institutes

distance seems to create heroes more easily
     even though they are not aware of it
music helps to maintain the division between here and there

only when the draped coffins are unloaded
     those two worlds converge
and our sense of uninvolvement is exploded
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