What are you doing?
Asked the baby’s eyes, blinking!
I make the bed fluffy and soft,
I close the window for there is a draft,
I make apple carrot mash,
For you to grow up in a flash.
Came the reply from a new mommy,
Who had tonnes of love to enamour.
What are you making?
Enquired the kid, leaning on the counter tiptoeing!
I am baking a cake for your birthday,
I am stitching you a bag to use night or day,
Searching for the special book,
That accessorises your extraordinary look.
Poured out the words,
While working non-stop, the kid mater’s hands.
What do you want?
Retorted the teen, with a taunt!
I came to see you study,
As I rest my notes copying fingers,
A minute to get steady,
As I drive to and from coaching, fatigue lingers,
An eyeful to seep,
As I wonder about your nutrition upkeep.
Comes a few puzzled sentences in spurts,
As a teenager’s mama wraps around the curt words.
Leave me alone!
Snaps a young child, all grown.
Come sit by me for a few minutes,
Without judging or piling demerits,
A casual conversation, that doesn’t start a strike,
The laughter that doesn’t carry the responsibility to shirk.
But all the mae gets to say is, “Have a good day”,
As she decides to walk away.
And then there is the silence complete,
A yearning to talk to your children leaves a moeder incomplete.
As an old lady, she rocks on a chair all alone,
Wondering if she had done something wrong,
Years of living for the children and future,
She did not anticipate an emptiness to nurture.
Going about her chores every day,
Old, alone, tired and haggard,
In a home once filled with her little wonder,
A mother decides to fade away.
Sreeyantha is a person who sees the world in all the colours of the rainbow. A creative homemaker who wishes to capture the universe’s beauty in poems, paintings and short essays. You can read a collection of her poems here.
Featured image: Provided by the author