Old Mother
Posted: September 25, 2014 Filed under: Poem, Poetry | Tags: Bleak, Domestic, Ghost, Love, Mother, Old, Sun, Umbilical Cord Leave a commentOld mother
washing clothes under tap water.
Its thrashing sound,
a stout ghost’s footsteps:
stomp-a, stomp-a, halt;
making the house jump
like a new calf.
Torn
years ago, from a hopeful girl,
pink, a cord, is put up
to hang the wet garbs
of her unkind men,
stern in love —
In the shade. In the sun.
(The poem was published in the Sahitya Akademi’s ‘Indian Literature’ #326, in December, 2022)
arunparia 