My Mother
©May 12, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
My mother grew like a flower
In the midst of plenty and lack.
She formed like music welling
From a young throat,
And played like water over pebbles,
A happy child, laughing,
Flying down the street,
Skipping, and playing kitti pille and pandi.
And responsibility weighed on her,
As the years unfolded, and she learned
What she had to do:
Bathe her siblings,
Comb their hair, get them ready
For the day, for school,
All the while keeping her mind
Quiet, attentive, learning
Her place in a tilted world.
And she helped her young mother
In the kitchen, where the
Clay and straw and wood stove
Burned steadily, while she blew
Through a thin pipe, and stirred the sambhar,
Made the curry, cooked rice,
Mashed keerai in a stone pot.
And she went to school,
And learned that education
Was a gift that could be
Taken away when she reached
Sombre teenage-hood.
And she learned the ways of
An older world that I glimpsed, fascinated
When she, herself now a young mother,
Sang us into being, made new life.
My world flowed differently,
And I went to school, rode my bike,
Spoke boldly, read poetry,
Played the guitar, ignored the old ways.
And when I learned how things worked,
In science, or in books,
I’d tell her, and she’d smile, mysteriously.
She’d make our lunches, our dinners,
Give us our privacy, let us be.
And the household moved like a solar system,
With her singing, her work, her love
An absolute, a constant
At our very centre.
And she is still that:
The absolute centre,
The constant unchanging sun
Of our wheeling, busy worlds.
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