Motherhood
23/08/00
(for Vaskar)
My lover showed me a photograph
of a petite lady in brown gerogette sari
She had his cheeks
-- His mother
She sent me home-made preserve:
Bamboo and olive
She sent me tea and headgear from Nepal
She entrusted to me her son, Vaskar
II
Vaskar's girl is now my daughter
Daughter-in-law!
Is there no out of blood relationships
Charmed circles
She is big boned as the mother is small
She is swarthy as the mother is fair
She is a tomboy as the mother is, well, Mother
This is how my lover found an out
from blood relationships
III
I prayed to the Great Mother once
I asked her to send me one of her Bhaktas
Just one
She sent me Vaskar!
He came sprouting poetry
I grew wings I
flew I became little mother
Then why do I weep
As I write this on this very rainy morning?
IV
My mother's face glows through these lines
The same glow Vaskar finds in my face
Mother is a young woman again in my memory
I reach up to her navel
And she lets me nestle
Breathing in her fresh scent as in boyhood
V
This is the most difficult poem I've ever written:
Vaskar throws up his legs in bed
And tugs me by my neck towards him
Closer and closer and closer
My mother has thrown away her crutches
A young girl now she has thrown away her clothes
And she makes love to my father, a young man, in my bed
Vaskar smiles the smile of my father
A smile father smiled so rarely as the years wore on
And I am my father
Making love to Vaskar, my son, in my own bed
VI
And now my tears
Have turned the monsoon
I weep I weep I weep bitterly
Bitterly for Vaskar
And for my lonely self
I weep for all the errant truant sons of the
world
Who are alive only by the mercy raining from the eyes
of the Great Mother.
Forgive, forgive!