poem #5

This poem is not explicitly about the city by the sea, but I thought it was interesting to write. Familial relationships are a large part of the subcontinent in general, and they are very often quite complex. This is my attempt at trying to verbalise a relationship between mother and daughter, that continues after one has passed away. 

 ... 

My mother was always a quiet woman. 

As we were growing up, 

She would always listen to us giggle and talk. 

She took everything in with her big brown eyes, 

a brown the same colour as a dark pecan pie. 

For her approval I yearned, 

but soon, I learned, 

that her love need not be earned. 

As I grew up, 

My mother never changed. 

To my kids and I, 

she stayed the same. 

She sat silently as my kids talked loudly, 

and when they weren't looking, 

she would smile proudly. 

My kids remember her as a woman of few words. 

She would ask for sabzi like clockwork at two, 

and wait for her chai precisely at six.

When she was gone, 

nothing really changed. 

There was still quietness, 

but it was not the same. 

It was an empty quietness, 

Which I felt whenever to our house I came. 

I feel as if I am becoming my mother; 

my kids talk as much as we did all that time ago, 

and I often feel a surge of reminiscence.

They talk and I listen, 

as my mother did, 

all those years ago.