The Twelfth Day

The Twelfth Day

It is late evening,

The maid has run away screaming

Rain rain, 

something inside, 

that lay parched, 

looks in anticipation,

The known aroma steams off

the warm earth and rushes 

to the interiors,

It is raining.

The first time mother is not there

when it is raining,

There is none anymore 

to tell joyfully, Maa, it is raining.

The house seemed very quiet 

in the day today

pronouncing that someone 

kept the air thick with her presence

despite disease, pain and dejection,

Silence tries to embrace the house

with its frozen stiff hands.

She,who came and sat 

and talked of dead people in the parental village,the tantrum of maids,

small home details, new ailments and daily quota of disappointments, Who refused to give in,

to diseases and heartbreaks,

The diseases ate her blood 

and marrow

and slowly kept feeding on her 

stressed heart.

There is an inaudible cry

that turns into sobs off and on

A guilt that gnaws at the psyche

that we never returned love for love

and allowed her to hurt and get sick

in silence, 

Of our negligence and nonchalance,

so much so that,

whom we call God 

could not bear it anymore,

and devised a way to take her back home in the name of

a stroke.