Poetry at Sangam

Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.

Mother by Keki N Daruwalla

Your spine goes creaking now
across the bow of your body.
Your skin preserves the past
in its creases
like mummy-wrap.

Your eyes don’t sputter
with the same fires
as they discharge
the arrows of your love.

Your memories flounder
amongst your sons now.
You confuse the one who
wet his bed
with the one who
bit through your breasts
and made them septic.

When my children ask you
things about your childhood
your smile becomes remote and enigmatic.

Once in six months now
you press them to your body
to remind us that love
was the only written word
in the scripture of your hands.

I think something shriveled
within you , Mother,
            the day you broke your bangles
            and shook the lion-dust
            of my father from your brow.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Keki Daruwalla is a leading figure in Indian poetry in English today. He is the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award (1984) and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (1987) for Asia. Born in Lahore, Daruwalla holds a Masters degree from Punjab University, Chandigarh. He joined the Indian Police Service in 1958 (the recurrent theme of violence in his poetry has frequently, and somewhat reductively, been attributed to his choice of profession). He is retired and lives in Delhi.

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