Call of the Last Dirge         

Here’s a poignant elegy by Subramanian, exclusively for Different Truths.

Away from the mundane groans of the day,
stereotyped chatter and blasé outpourings!
Life beats around them, as would a moth
ticking round the wall clock; its emptiness
has a hollow echo of the shapeless wild.
A whitened leaf on a bleary branch.
 
On a wintry evening, when I scan the sky,
The pale milky bough fills the eye.                                                   
The hair on my arm bristles up to see
the prankish slow wink of rare stars.
 
A burgeoning cosmic radiance spreads
its munificence across the sky bed.
A permanent glow in the womb of the dark
to unfasten the mind from its cogs.
 
My mother, her bones giving way, ever
looked up to the sky for the final bliss.
 
I hearken to her last battle-worn days,
awaiting the faint call of the last dirge.
Always let my mind take its solace.

Picture design by Anumita Roy, Different Truths