MOTHER'S DAY BY SHIV K KUMAR

MOTHER'S DAY BY SHIV K KUMAR 

We do it differently 

in this dark continent. 

Not just once a year 

a string of spurious verses 

ensconced in a bouquet 

shaped like Chinese house of dreams. 

My mother is more demanding - 

an obeisance at each sunrise, 

like a devotee throwing a handful 

of yellow rice to the birds. 

Holding a candelabrum before an idol, 

Just once a year 

Is desecrating it. 

Whenever I see a caterpillar slouching 

towards a pansy's eye, 

or hear ancestral voices in a wind's howl, 

I invoke my deity - 

sometimes twice a day.