When I was rebuked…
When I was rebuked…
When I was rebuked & caned
for my childhood pranks,
once,
I was sentenced to sit
in a corner room
where no one entered.
Much time after my tears had dried up,
I stopped that boring hum of crying
(that bothered nobody in the house)
and, along the wall I slid to the door
to peep at my mom’s serious face
that made me lonesome
and to see my sister or grandma
coming to recue me
but neither did care to.
Withdrawn, I stepped back to
that old bench whereon
a lonely ant caught my sight
with a food grain larger than himself,
toiling to climb up the slope of a full sack
but the grain would roll him down again.
Watched it happen again & again
eagerly ran I to the verandah
calling my little sister,
who undoing her embrace from grandma’s neck
just followed me returning to my prison.
By that time,
the ant had vanished
to his sand-surrounded hole on the shelf
from where,
when an awaited ant emerged,
I yelled in great excitement
Enacting how everything had happened.
Then,
as my mom appeared at the door,
my lips got zipped up as ‘the sentence’
flashed back in my mind.
From my bent head I could see my mom,
With her hands stretched,
nearing me:
she was smiling and only smiling
And I could never forget her majestic hug.
Copyright Rathnashikamani Bijja 2012
(Move your mouse over the image and observe)
Image credits:
Image 1: by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Image 2 (ie mouseover image): by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
