Friday 3 June 2011

Loss

My mamma’s a pretty one.
She’s pink today, wearing pink,
Her giggles like tinkling bells,
Or summer water gurgles,
She’s big around the middle,
Nana says it’s my baby sister
Or a baby brother, perhaps.
My mamma’s a pretty one.

She’s not playing with me now,
Moaning now and then...
There’s grime everywhere
And so many people too.
She doesn’t look at me
Or at them either,
I wait for my new baby friend.
My mamma’s a pretty one.

Where’s Daddy, I wonder
He’s gone, they say.
Looking at me with wondrous eyes
Daddy’s away, they tell me.
I wonder why
He must make the sick people well
Sick people are sad
Is my Mamma sick?
But she’s such a pretty one.

It was so hot in the wide open field
When they thrust fire into my hands.
And so hot now
People, so many...
Leave my Mamma alone, I wail
She’s ill, don't you see?
But they don't go...
And they don't stay...

Whispers, just whisper around me.
Mamma! Look at me!
Where’s Daddy?
I want Daddy.

They look at her.
She looks at me.
I am one.
I look.

 My colleague lost her husband in an air-ambulance crash
(http://www.dailypioneer.com/341522/He-left-home-in-haste-but-returned-dead.html)
There are no words to console her, their families, and families of others who lost their lives. A day passed, a week, a month, and slowly a year will have passed... and the little child of one will never know his father. He ended up with the worst deal because he didn't even understand he was supposed to be in pain.
This lifetime...it's unfair.

2 comments:

Aditya said...

I am sorry for her loss, but what is uncanny that I wrote a poem titled 'Loss' yesterday night too.

Sujata Ravi said...

There're no words to say to people who grieve for those who're lost this way, man. The irony's just cruel. Also. I read about this in the news, but now the degree of separation is so little, it feels much worse.