Did death take so many

That the crowded headstones

Vied for space and leaned

And stood in awkward silence?

Do I see an empty space

Across the aisle in the pew?

At the Thanksgiving table,

The numbers have certainly dwindled.

Fewer Christmas cards arrive

And I did not notice!

I shop less and

On the tree skirt,

The pile has diminished.

There are no guests

And the table is not laden

The food has lost its flavor

And the kitchen has turned cold.

The once riotous garden

Is in disarray today.

No constant gardener

To poke and pry and

To warn the plants and flowers

To be be on the lookout

For the expectations!

Weeds encroached in abandon

For the Reaper gathered the custodian.

Unabashed, the wilted leaves drooped

For want of care and love

Of the one who paid them homage.

Death had already crossed my threshold!

They come upon me in the morns

Of winter cold and tormented nights-

Crunch, crunch – the grasses crunch,

Brittle snap the twigs on branch,

Misty shadows loom around,

And foggy thoughts crowd and cloud.

Now, slumber’s veils are rent asunder

And lashes part and pupils wander

Out the frosted window glasses

Into garden hoar-frost and rimèd grasses.

Suddenly, o’er the horizon, ascends the sun;

The twigs and grasses soften;

Mists and fogs lift and melt away

And so my demons scatter away

In sunshine’s bright promise.

Here is my first love- my only love-

He lies buried under the sod;

Our shared headstone, a mute testament

Of oneness, in life and in death,

Eternally twined like the rings carved in.

Is he under the sod, my heart murmurs,

Do I meet him when I visit his resting place?

Thoughts wander at the site of the sod

Under which he lies in peaceful slumber.

But, I know that he is in our house

When I try to share a  joke and

I feel the whisper of a touch.

I murmur apologies at the chaotic house

Or at the forgotten or neglected tasks.

He is with me at the delicious moments,

Twinkling at the absurd and the ludicrous

These I share with no one else!

There are tears that gush at the untimely parting

And there is laughter and chatter

At the retelling of stories that he no longer is

A player or a partner on this side of eternity.

Often, I face the lonely precipice

And climb alone, reaching fingers

Straining to touch fate’s vagaries

And trying to dictate an alternate destiny!

Why wake up in the morning

To stare at nothing

And relive the dark moments

Just before the light went

Out of the dear life

And the paralysis

Of every fiber set in?

The might-have-beens parade

In never ending colums

To torment and point

At every little action

Or inaction of someone

Who could have

Or should have

Done something

Or other

That might have

Made the difference!

Life is sidelined

And stays in shadows,

Forgetting  routines-

Waking, sleeping, eating.

Then, the onslaught

Of torrential out-pours

That dry out tear ducts

And wring out torment

At the touch of a jacket,

The sight of a furled umbrella

And the black sandals

In the kitchen- ever ready-

Either for inclement weather

Or to be worn off carpets,

At the sight of a brochure

Of long planned trips,

Or the feel of the briefcase

Ever carrying work

For tomorrows…

Until the day awakens

When, in balmy moments,

A thought is compared,

A joke is shared,

And your hand is held,

In spirit, for ever.

The golden time is here

In all its glory and blaze;

The autumnal tints – flame hues-

The red, yellow and orange –

Crowd the nipping air in fiery leaps

Before the twigs and branches strain,

In skeletal supplication

In earthy tones of greys and browns,

Frigid in winter’s rime and frost,

Before the earthy sod grows hard

In the freezing climes

When the wintry winds howl

And shake the twigs to drop

And write cuneiform

In the pallid coverlet

That wraps the world in frost,

And before those waning moments

Lead to a numb oblivion.

          The golden time is here

          When wisdom’s kernels

          Plump up to the skin.

          Now, I stand upon my vantage –

         The tired past behind me –

         In calm, serene contentment.

         With sage and mature eyes

         I wait future’s progress

        Before the aural tints fade away

        Into silvery dullness and wrinkly grey,

        Before the rheumy eyes peer –

        Half-shuttered- at all around me

       When feeble limbs shake

       Like unsheltered aspen leaves

       And cracked voice rasps

       In listener’s ears

       Before the waning moments

       Inch towards eternal rest.

The most daunting was

The surprise, the shock of it,

When flakes hurried down

In a pelter of madness,

After the glimpse of warmth

When the sun coursed, already,

Into the House of Ram!

Floating and wafting,

In a swirl of tossed down

Like those from an epic battle

Of enormous pillows thwacking

In a pajama game of giants,

The snow flakes swayed

In a danse macabre ,

In a relentless fury

Of mad moves and insane steps

Of a whirling dervish

Of far away climes.

Suddenly, the quiet settled

Like a pall over the land

And the flurries gentled

To a slow stop

That ended the rage.

A white moth or a black crow,

East or West,

The woman goes about

In a world without brightness,

No rainbow hues to lighten

The life made barren by death,

A crippled life with broken wings

And severed limbs.

Death detaches a pair!

The Indian widow,

Dashed her bangles

And muted them for ever;

In washed out, colorless white, and

The vermilion wiped off her forehead,

She entered as the bad omen

At births and weddings.

Draped in black crepe and veiled,

The Western widow fared no better.

A daughter, wife, a mother,

And often a grandmother,

She was somebody’s someone.

In stoic silence or in muted sighs,

She yearned for security

That had forsaken her.

The funeral meats turned cold

And the widow turned

To face a changed world.

In the East or in the West,

The widow, often, faced

A life of undefined terms

And defined abandonment.

But, for the widower,

There were no strictures,

White clothes or black clothes,

The ominous reminders

Of death’s parting

And the loss of love and life!

Is this an ember that glows in gashes?

The soot is lifted with each blow of breath

That touches the core of heat

To transform the gray lumps.

In life’s furnace, one stays cold and dull,

Never touched by outside drafts

Until the pain of loss and shock of grief

Wafts the dull coating away

And fires up heart’s core

And awakens the nerve ends.

And as bellows blow air into

The tranquil, insipid coal chunks,

The cold furnace comes alive.

Fired up, the coal gleams and shines

Into a fiery, hot, ruddy gem.

It is alive and pain lashes

In the glowing slashes.

Awakening powers

That rise from within.

A sun for the moment,

Coal gives out its life,

To those it nurtures,

Heat to sustain,

And warmth to enfold

Those who gather around.