Image of My Mother By Nuh-Ul Alam Lenin

Image of My Mother

Nuh-Ul Alam Lenin

 

Pondering over painting a portrait of yours

No sooner had I set the easel

The sky wept and a rainfall swept away my paintbrushes,

Tears from my mind's eye rolled down and soaked your image within.

 

Puzzled and wondered, I experienced a flashback of my childhood;

Me, my immediate elder sister and the noon;

With youthful impatience, we were dancing amidst drizzling.

Suddenly appeared the sunlight;

A folk-lore marriage of the fox was going to happen;

From near-by villages around

Sounds of autumn-festive-drums were floating.

 

Still alive in the memory!

I snitched bananas, but my dear sister was accused of that.

Oh! I deeply felt for her.

I was always stick to my mother

We never let our mother go out of out sight.

We were impatient like newly born calves.

 

Then I thought today I would craft stanzas for my mother

As soon as I entered the house fora pen

My mother emerged with a smiling face,

She said, "No ink remains in your pen, my son

Please, refrain from fruitless rhyming effort.

Here is me; rather you take an ablution in the Padma,

For long days I have been longing for your tender touch."

 

After the Padma-erosion had grabbed our village

Finding no alternative,

My elder brother had to float

The mummy-like-dead body of my mother in the Padma.

 

My mother has been mingling in the Padma water

She is the pseudonym of my mother

Plunging there I find solace.