The Shower
The landscape, like the awed face of a child,
Grew curiously blurred; a hush of death
Fell on the fields, and in the darkened wild
The zephyr held its breath.
No wavering glamour-work of light and shade
Dappled the shivering surface of the brook;
The frightened ripples in their ambuscade
Of willows thrilled and shook.
The sullen day grew darker, and anon
Dim flashes of pent anger lit the sky;
With rumbling wheels of wrath came rolling on
The storm's artillery.
The cloud above put on its blackest frown,
And then, as with a vengeful cry of pain,
The lightning snatched it, ripped and flung it down
In ravelled shreds of rain:
While I, transfigured by some wondrous art,
Bowed with the thirsty lilies to the sod,
My empty soul brimmed over, and my heart
Drenched with the love of God.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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A Storm In Summer
Nature that day a woman was in weakness,
A woman in her impotent high wrath.
At the dawn we watched it, a low cloud half seen
Under the sun; an innocent child's face
It seemed to us rose--red and fringed with light
Boding no hurt, a pure translucent cloud,
Deep in the East where the Sun's disk began.
We did not guess what strengths in it were pent,
What terrors of rebellion. An hour more,
And it had gathered volume and the form
Of a dark mask, the she--wolf's of old Rome,
The ears, the brow, the cold unpitying eyes,
Through which gleams flashed. And, as we watched, the roll
Of thunder from a red throat muttering
Gave menace of the wild beast close at hand.
Anon a wall of darkness in the South
Black to the Zenith, and a far--off wail,
The wind among the trees.--And then, behold,
Flying before it a mad clamorous rout
Of peewits, starlings, hawks, crows, dishwashers,
Blackbirds and jays, by hundreds, scattering,
While the Earth trembled holding as it were its breath;
Till suddenly an answer from the ground,
And the fields shook and a new mighty roar
Crashed through the oaks, and in a pent--up flow
The storm's rage broke in thunder overhead,
And all the anger of the passionate heaven
Burst into tears.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Ylladmar
Her hair was, oh, so dense a blur
Of darkness, midnight envied her;
And stars grew dimmer in the skies
To see the glory of her eyes;
And all the summer rain of light
That showered from the moon at night
Fell o'er her features as the gloom
Of twilight o'er a lily-bloom.
The crimson fruitage of her lips
Was ripe and lush with sweeter wine
Than burgundy or muscadine
Or vintage that the burgher sips
In some old garden on the Rhine:
And I to taste of it could well
Believe my heart a crucible
Of molten love--and I could feel
The drunken soul within me reel
And rock and stagger till it fell.
And do you wonder that I bowed
Before her splendor as a cloud
Of storm the golden-sandaled sun
Had set his conquering foot upon?
And did she will it, I could lie
In writhing rapture down and die
A death so full of precious pain
I'd waken up to die again.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Sinfonia Eroica
(To Sylvia.)
My Love, my Love, it was a day in June,
A mellow, drowsy, golden afternoon;
And all the eager people thronging came
To that great hall, drawn by the magic name
Of one, a high magician, who can raise
The spirits of the past and future days,
And draw the dreams from out the secret breast,
Giving them life and shape.
I, with the rest,
Sat there athirst, atremble for the sound;
And as my aimless glances wandered round,
Far off, across the hush'd, expectant throng,
I saw your face that fac'd mine.
Clear and strong
Rush'd forth the sound, a mighty mountain stream;
Across the clust'ring heads mine eyes did seem
By subtle forces drawn, your eyes to meet.
Then you, the melody, the summer heat,
Mingled in all my blood and made it wine.
Straight I forgot the world's great woe and mine;
My spirit's murky lead grew molten fire;
Despair itself was rapture.
Ever higher,
Stronger and clearer rose the mighty strain;
Then sudden fell; then all was still again,
And I sank back, quivering as one in pain.
Brief was the pause; then, 'mid a hush profound,
Slow on the waiting air swell'd forth a sound
So wondrous sweet that each man held his breath;
A measur'd, mystic melody of death.
Then back you lean'd your head, and I could note
The upward outline of your perfect throat;
And ever, as the music smote the air,
Mine eyes from far held fast your body fair.
And in that wondrous moment seem'd to fade
My life's great woe, and grow an empty shade
Which had not been, nor was not.
And I knew
Not which was sound, and which, O Love, was you.
All Through The Night
With air so still, no breeze around,
a storm was brewing, somewhat near.
Not a whisper crept o’er the ground,
just eerie silence, fraught with fear.
Birds ceased their singing, creatures fled,
knowing that something might ensue.
Rumbling was heard, causing such dread,
one sky with stealth, much darker grew.
The landscape stood out harsh and bleak,
lightning bolts pierced the firmament.
Torrential rain in sheets so freak,
came crashing down when clouds gave vent.
All through the night the tempest roared,
pelting the earth with potent force.
And on and on the deluge poured,
as it continued on its course.
When all was spent the sun did rise,
reflecting on a wet terrain.
Then as land ultimately dries,
life thus returns to its domain.
poem by Ernestine Northover
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The Feud
I hear a cry from the Sansard cave,
O mother, will no one hearken?
A cry of the lost, will no one save?
A cry of the dead, though the oceans rave,
And the scream of a gull as he wheels o'er a grave,
While the shadows darken and darken.'
'Oh, hush thee, child, for the night is wet,
And the cloud-caves split asunder,
With lightning in a jagged fret,
Like the gleam of a salmon in the net,
When the rocks are rich in the red sunset,
And the stream rolls down in thunder.'
'Mother, O mother, a pain at my heart,
A pang like the pang of dying.'
'Oh, hush thee, child, for the wild birds dart
Up and down, and close and part,
Wheeling round where the black cliffs start,
And the foam at their feet is flying.'
'O mother, a strife like the black clouds'
And a peace that cometh after.'
'Hush, child, for peace is the end of life,
And the heart of a maiden finds peace as a wife,
But the sky and the cliffs and the ocean are rife
With the storm and thunder's laughter.'
'Come in, my sons, come in and rest,
For the shadows darken and darken,
And your sister is pale as the white swan's breast,
And her eyes are fixed and her lips are pressed
In the death of a name ye might have guessed,
Had ye twain been here to hearken.'
'Hush, mother, a corpse lies on the sand,
And the spray is round it driven,
It lies on its face, and one white hand
Points through the mist on the belt of strand
To where the cliffs of Sansard stand,
And the ocean's strength is riven.'
'Was it God, my sons, who laid him there?
Or the sea that left him sleeping?'
'Nay, mother, our dirks where his heart was bare,
As swift as the rain through the teeth of the air;
And the foam-fingers play in the Saxon's hair,
While the tides are round him creeping.'
'Oh, curses on you, hand and head,
Like the rains in this wild weather
The guilt of blood is swift and dread,
Your sister's face is cold and dead,
Ye may not part whom God would wed
And love hath knit together.'
poem by Frederick George Scott
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The Rainy Morning
The dawn of the day was dreary,
And the lowering clouds o'erhead
Wept in a silent sorrow
Where the sweet sunshine lay dead;
And a wind came out of the eastward
Like an endless sigh of pain,
And the leaves fell down in the pathway
And writhed in the falling rain.
I had tried in a brave endeavor
To chord my harp with the sun,
But the strings would slacken ever,
And the task was a weary one:
And so, like a child impatient
And sick of a discontent,
I bowed in a shower of tear-drops
And mourned with the instrument.
And lo! as I bowed, the splendor
Of the sun bent over me,
With a touch as warm and tender
As a father's hand might be:
And, even as I felt its presence,
My clouded soul grew bright,
And the tears, like the rain of morning,
Melted in mists of light.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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The brook
I looked in the brook and saw a face -
Heigh-ho, but a child was I!
There were rushes and willows in that place,
And they clutched at the brook as the brook ran by;
And the brook it ran its own sweet way,
As a child doth run in heedless play,
And as it ran I heard it say:
"Hasten with me
To the roistering sea
That is wroth with the flame of the morning sky!"
I look in the brook and see a face -
Heigh-ho, but the years go by!
The rushes are dead in the old-time place,
And the willows I knew when a child was I.
And the brook it seemeth to me to say,
As ever it stealeth on its way -
Solemnly now, and not in play:
"Oh, come with me
To the slumbrous sea
That is gray with the peace of the evening sky!"
Heigh-ho, but the years go by -
I would to God that a child were I!
poem by Eugene Field
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A Life's Story
THE morning broke in a pearly haze,
Then the east grew duskly red:
'Oh, my only day, oh, my day of days,
To-day he will come,' I said.
As the sun climbed up in the clearer sky,
The mists fell down at his feet;
'There is sunshine too in my heart,' said I,
'For to-day is the day we meet;
Perhaps even now he is journeying fast--
Perhaps he is almost here.'
And my heart leaped up at each foot that passed,
With the thought that he might be near.
In my garden the fairest flowers that grew
I plucked for him, sweet, dew-wet,
And held them ready, the whole day through,
To gladden him when we met.
The sun shone warm on the longing earth,
That thrilled to his fervent kiss;
But what to me was the sun's smile worth,
When I longed for that smile of his?
The hours in their flight seemed strangely slow
For the sake of the hour to be;
'Go swiftly now--and more slowly go
When he shall be here with me.'
But the level light of late afternoon
Fell cold on me, still alone;
My flowers were dying, gathered too soon,
And my whole day's work undone.
With empty heart and unsatisfied
I turned from the red sunset:
'Short time for his coming is left,' I cried,
'It shall not be evening yet.'
But the sky grows pale, and a weak wind wakes,
And long flights of birds go home,
And slowly and surely the day's spell breaks,
And I know that he will not come.
Perhaps he has never turned my way,
Nor known how my heart would wait;
Perhaps he has sought me the whole long day,
And has failed at my very gate;
Perhaps all these hours of increasing pain
Have been only a dream of a day,
And after the night I shall wake again,
And 'To-day he comes,' I shall say.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Avis
With a golden rolling sound
Booming came a bell,
From the aery in the tower
Eagles fell;
So with regal wings
Hurled, and gleaming sound and power,
Sprang the fatal spell.
Ten a storm of burnished doves
Gleaming from the cote
Flurried by the almonry
O'er the moat,--
Fell and soared and fell
With the arc and iris eye
Burning breast and throat.
Avis heard the beaten bell
Break the quiet space,
Gathering softly in the room
Round her face;
And the sound of wings
From the deeps of rosy gloom
Rustled in the place.
Nothing moved along the wall,
Weltered on the floor;
Only in the purple deep,
Streaming o'er,
Came the dream of sound
Silent as the dale of sleep,
Where the dreams are four.
(One of love without a word,
Wan to look upon,
One of fear without a cry,
Cowering stone,
And the dower of life,
Grief without a single sigh,
Pain without a moan.)
"Avis-Avis!" Cried a voice;
Then the voice was mute.
"Avis!" Soft the echo lay
As the lute.
Where she was she fell,
Drowsy as mandragora,
Trancèd to the root.
Then she heard her mother's voice,
Tender as a dove;
Then her lover plain and sigh,
"Avis--Love!"
Like the mavis bird
Calling, calling lonelily
From the eerie grove.
Then she heard within the vast
Closure of the spell,
Rolled and moulded into one
Rounded swell,
All the sounds that ever were
Uttered underneath the sun,
Heard in heaven or hell.
In the arras moved the wind,
And the window cloth
Rippled like a serpent barred,
Gray with wrath;
In the brazier gold
The wan ghost of a rose charred
Fluttered like a moth.
Tranquil lay her darkened eyes
As the pools that keep
Auras dim of fern and frond
Dappled, deep,
Dreamy as the map of Nod;
Moveless was she as a wand
In the wind of sleep.
Then the birds began to cry
From the crannied wall,
Piping as the morning rose
Mystical,
Gray with whistling rain,
Silver with the light that flows
In the interval.
Pallid poplars cast a shade,
Twinkling gray and dun,
Where the wind and water wove
Into one
All the linnet leaves,
Greening from the mere and grove
In the undern sun.
Night fell with the ferny dusk,
Planets paled and grew,
Up, with lily and clarid turns
Throbbing through,
Rose the robin's song,
Heart of home and love that burns beating in the dew.
But she neither moved nor heard,
Trancèd was her breath;
Lip on charmèd lip was laid
(One who saith
"Love-Undone" and falls).
Silent was she as a shade
In the dells of death.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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The Wind And The Sea
I STOOD by the shore at the death of day,
As the sun sank flaming red;
And the face of the waters that spread away
Was as gray as the face of the dead.
And I heard the cry of the wanton sea
And the moan of the wailing wind;
For love's sweet pain in his heart had he,
But the gray old sea had sinned.
The wind was young and the sea was old,
But their cries went up together;
The wind was warm and the sea was cold,
For age makes wintry weather.
So they cried aloud and they wept amain,
Till the sky grew dark to hear it;
And out of its folds crept the misty rain,
In its shroud, like a troubled spirit.
For the wind was wild with a hopeless love,
And the sea was sad at heart
At many a crime that he wot of,
Wherein he had played his part.
He thought of the gallant ships gone down
By the will of his wicked waves;
And he thought how the churchyard in the town
Held the sea-made widows' graves.
The wild wind thought of the love he had left
Afar in an Eastern land,
And he longed, as long the much bereft,
For the touch of her perfumed hand.
In his winding wail and his deep-heaved sigh
His aching grief found vent;
While the sea looked up at the bending sky
And murmured: 'I repent.'
But e'en as he spoke, a ship came by,
That bravely ploughed the main,
And a light came into the sea's green eye,
And his heart grew hard again.
Then he spoke to the wind: 'Friend, seest thou not
Yon vessel is eastward bound?
Pray speed with it to the happy spot
Where thy loved one may be found.'
And the wind rose up in a dear delight,
And after the good ship sped;
But the crafty sea by his wicked might
Kept the vessel ever ahead.
Till the wind grew fierce in his despair,
And white on the brow and lip.
He tore his garments and tore his hair,
And fell on the flying ship.
And the ship went down, for a rock was there,
And the sailless sea loomed black;
While burdened again with dole and care,
The wind came moaning back.
And still he moans from his bosom hot
Where his raging grief lies pent,
And ever when the ships come not,
The sea says: 'I repent,'
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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In the Wood
I woke in suffering, and sadly heard,
Hard by my tent, repeated cries of pain,
That to the wilderness, in wildest strain,
Proclaimed the trouble of a mother bird
Robbed of her young; and I, too deeply stirr'd,
Thought as above me fell the ceaseless rain,
Wherefore should one who slumbers wake again,
Since anguish is the universal word?
Then suddenly aloft the wood there rose
The holy anthem of the hermit thrush,
From depths of happiness toward Heaven swelling;
And o'er the forest came an awed repose,
And griefs that chid the stormy night grew hush,
List'ning that wondrous ecstasy upwelling!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Father
The evening found us whom the day had fled,
Once more in bitter anger, you and I,
Over some small, some foolish, trivial thing
Our anger would not decently let die,
But dragged between us, shamed and shivering
Until each other's taunts we scarcely heard,
Until we lost the sense of all we said,
And knew not who first spoke the fatal word.
It seemed that even every kiss we wrung
We killed at birth with shuddering and hate,
As if we feared a thing too passionate.
However close we clung
One hour the next hour found us separate,
Estranged, and Love most bitter on our tongue.
To-night we quarrelled over one small head,
Our fruit of last year's maying, the white bud
Blown from our stormy kisses and the dead
First rapture of our wild, estranging blood.
You clutched him: there was panther in your eyes,
We breathed like beasts in thickets, on the wall
Our shadows in huge challenge seemed to rise,
The room grew dark with anger. Yet through all
The shame and hurt and pity of it you were
Still strangely and imperishably dear,
As one who loves the wild day none the less
That breaks in bitter hands the buds of Spring,
Whose cold hand stops the breath of loveliness,
And drives the wailing ghost of beauty past,
Making the rose, — even the rose, a thing
For pain to be remembered by at last.
I said: 'My son shall wear his father's sword.'
You said: 'Shall hands once blossoms at my breast
Be stained with blood?' I answered with a word
More bitter, and your own, the bitterest
Stung me to sullen anger, and I said:
'My son shall be no coward of his line
Because his mother choose'; you turned your head
And your eyes grew implacable in mine.
And like a trodden snake you turned to meet
The foe with sudden hissing… then you smiled,
And broke our life in pieces at my feet,
'Your child?' you said: 'Your child?'
poem by Muriel Stuart
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May The Living Be Dead (In Our Wake)
Said her name was Marie
From the banks of the Lee
With the prettiest eyes my own had ever seen
Her hair like ripples
They danced with the tide
As our hearts washed away to the sea
Was she sent down from the heavens above
Her breath pure as whiskey my heart fell in love
Now the devil is courtin' a different tune
And I laugh as the tears was the rain
Tell me why no one's listenin'
Is there nothing at all left to say
In a world so unforgiving
You mean more to me each every day
So may the living be dead in our wake
One cold winters night behind the clouds stars did hide
And the ghost of our souls thanking Christ
we're alive
Our spirits they crackled with lovers first sight
Till the mornin' came fresh with a new
Will you dance with me now heavens child sang
the clown
We've nothing left to lose but your wings and
my frown
Where over the hills the valleys will ring
To the sound of our love singin' true
Tell me why no one's listenin'
Is there nothing at all left to say
In a world so unforgiving
You mean more to me each every day
So may the living be dead in our wake
But the summer sun is melting now
With the leaves I'll soon be gone
Will you have the strength when the emptiness
shadows fall
Or will your aching heart be ripped apart
By the beating from the storm
Or will howling gales like yesterdays be gone
Yeah be gone... be gone
Was she sent down from the heavens above
Her breath pure as whiskey my heart fell in love
Now the devil is courtin' a different tune
And I laugh as the tears was the rain
Tell me why no one's listenin'
Is there nothing at all left to say
In a world so unforgiving
You mean more to me each every day
So may the living be dead in our wake
song performed by by Flogging Molly from Drunken Lullabies
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Rain To Remember!
Rain lashed out with lightning and thunder!
For every lightning phone also rang without fail!
It continued till I switched off light and went to bed!
Next day morning some death news due to lightning came!
Storm has dissipated but rain lashed now and then;
It's raining time nothing can stop it from falling!
Today there is complete silence prevailing!
Night is cold and wind has stopped after evening
Yet rain warning is given and is expected for 24 hours!
The summer drought without rain is causing so heavy rain now!
Farming fields without rain crops are waiting for rain
A week's rain at least will make it okay now!
When there is no rain we cry for it and when it is there we don't want
Whether we say this or that rain will do the best it can when it comes!
poem by Ramesh T A
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Disappointed.
AN old man planted and dug and tended,
Toiling in joy from dew to dew;
The sun was kind, and the rain befriended;
Fine grew his orchard and fair to view.
Then he said: 'I will quiet my thrifty fears,
For here is fruit for my failing years.'
But even then the storm-clouds gathered,
Swallowing up the azure sky;
The sweeping winds into white foam lathered
The placid breast of the bay, hard by;
Then the spirits that raged in the darkened air
Swept o'er his orchard and left it bare.
The old man stood in the rain, uncaring,
Viewing the place the storm had swept;
And then with a cry from his soul despairing,
He bowed him down to the earth and wept.
But a voice cried aloud from the driving rain;
'Arise, old man, and plant again!'
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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That Rain
Thunder starts rolling in
As it fell from the skys
Rain
Oh how it knows me so
As I stand underneath it
While I welcomed it with wide open arms
With my head facing the lightning bolts up ahead
The rain drops upon my face
Like welcoming kisses
As the thunder roared louder than the mightiest lion
As the lightning bolts lit up the sky brighter than Vegas itself
I twirled in the rain
Not caring who saw
In that rain
That rain I welcomed ever so
That rain which had the softest touch I had ever felt
poem by Storm Pedersen
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Storm
His face was charged with beauty as a cloud
With glimmering lightning. When it shadowed me
I shook, and was uneasy as a tree
That draws the brilliant danger, tremulous, bowed.
So must I tempt that face to loose its lightning.
Great gods, whose beauty is death, will laugh above,
Who made his beauty lovelier than love.
I shall be bright with their unearthly brightening.
And happier were it if my sap consume;
Glorious will shine the opening of my heart;
The land shall freshen that was under gloom;
What matter if all men cry aloud and start,
And women hide bleak faces in their shawl,
At those hilarious thunders of my fall?
poem by Wilfred Owen
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The Shag
"What is that great bird, sister, tell me,
Perched high on the top of the crag?"
"'T is the cormorant, dear little brother;
The fishermen call it the shag."
"But what does it there, sister, tell me,
Sitting lonely against the black sky?"
"It has settled to rest, little brother;
It hears the wild gale wailing high."
"But I am afraid of it, sister,
For over the sea and the land
It gazes, so black and so silent!"
"Little brother, hold fast to my hand."
"Oh, what was that, sister? The thunder?
Did the shag bring the storm and the cloud,
The wind and the rain and the lightning?"
"Little brother, the thunder roars loud.
"Run fast, for the rain sweeps the ocean;
Look! over the light-house it streams;
And the lightning leaps red, and above us
The gulls fill the air with their screams."
O'er the beach, o'er the rocks, running swiftly,
The little white cottage they gain;
And safely they watch from the window
The dance and the rush of the rain.
But the shag kept his place on the headland,
And when the brief storm had gone by,
He shook his loose plumes, and they saw him
Rise splendid and strong in the sky.
Clinging fast to the gown of his sister,
The little boy laughed as he flew;
"He is gone with the wind and the lightning!
And -- I am not frightened, -- are you?"
poem by Celia Thaxter
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The Cloud
One summer morn, out of the sea-waves wild,
A speck-like Cloud, the season’s fated child,
Came softly floating up the boundless sky,
And o’er the sun-parched hills all brown and dry.
Onward she glided through the azure air,
Borne by its motion without toil or care,
When looking down in her ethereal joy,
She marked earth’s moilers at their hard employ;
“And oh!” she said, “that by some act of grace
’Twere mine to succour yon fierce-toiling race,
To give the hungry meat, the thirsty drink—
The thought of good is very sweet to think.”
The day advanced, and the cloud greater grew,
And greater; likewise her desire to do
Some charity to men had more and more,
As the long sultry summer day on wore,
Greatened and warmed within her fleecy breast,
Like a dove fledging in its downy nest.
The heat waxed fiercer, until all the land
Clared in the sun as ’twere a monstrous brand
And the shrunk rivers, few and far between,
Like molten metal lightened in the scene.
Ill could Earth’s sons endure their toilsome state,
Though still they laboured, for their need was great,
And many a long beseeching look they sped
Towards that fair cloud, with many a sigh that said:
“We famish for thy bounty! For our sake
O break thou! in a showery blessing, break!”
“I feel, and fain would help you, ” said the cloud,
And towards the earth her bounteous being bowed;
But then remem’bring a tradition she
Had in her youth learned from her native sea,
That when a cloud adventures from the skies
Too near the altar of the hills, it dies!
Awhile she wavered and was blown about
Hither and thither by the winds of doubt;
But in the midst of heaven at length all still
She stood; then suddenly, with a keen thrill
Of light, she said within herself, “I will!
Yea, in the glad strength of devotion, I Will help
you, though in helping you I die.”
Filled with this thought’s divinity, the cloud
Grew worldlike vast, as earthward more she bowed!
Oh, never erewhile had she dreamed her state
So great might be, beneficently great!
O’er the parched fields in her angelic love
She spread her wide wings like a brooding dove
Till as her purpose deepened, drawing near,
Divinely awful did her front appear,
And men and beasts all trembled at the view,
And the woods bowed, though well all creatures knew
That near in her, to every kind the same,
A great predestined benefactress came.
And then wide-flashed throughout her full-grown form
The glory of her will! the pain and storm
Of life’s dire dread of death, whose mortal threat
From Christ himself drew agonizing sweat,
Flashed seething out of rents amid her heaps
Of lowering gloom, and thence with arrowy leaps
Hissed jagging downward, till a sheety glare
Illumined all the illimitable air;
The thunder followed, a tremendous sound,
Loud doubling and reverberating round;
Strong was her will, but stronger yet the power
Of love, that now dissolved her in a shower,
Dropping in blessings to enrich the earth
With health and plenty at one blooming birth.
Far as the rain extended o’er the land,
A splendid bow the freshened landscape spanned
Like a celestial arc, hung in the air
By angel artists, to illumine there
The parting triumph of that spirit fair.
The rainbow vanished, but the blessing craved
Rested upon the land the cloud had saved.
poem by Charles Harpur
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Mothers' Forever Stay
When the storm raged
Fell the trees,
Lightening struck
And cloud burst,
Rain lashed on the roof
And tiny white balls
Gathered at our door;
I remember how I would run
With a pounding heart
And hide my face in your sari folds
Until the storm spent… left.
You took me to the courtyard
And pointed at the mango tree;
See, the trunk, didn’t yield to wilful storm.
It’s grounded with roots deep into the earth.
The top shook like you.
I nodded as if I understood.
All I cared for was her nearness
And familiar fragrance.
As I grew old, her morning chants woke
Me from deep slumber, and I lingered in bed
Listening to her footsteps… reassured.
Looking back, when life threw some difficult tests
I had learnt to anchor myself in my breath.
Now there are no sari folds
But what she told
Guides me through highs and lows.
Mother, your little girl is all grown up now,
Just because you showed her how.
Pray mother,
How did you always know
What to say?
Even today I can feel your presence
For mothers never leave,
They forever stay.
a tribute to my mother on her birthday, written on 1st August.
poem by Mamta Agarwal
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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