The Epitaph

“…like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves…”
Only Death - Pablo Neruda

Still astride the bicycle,
I let it lean against the dusty old
Crumbling bank of the sidewall
Littered with an assortment of ropes,
And a rusty metal bucket
Where sat some empty bottles with rusty caps
In a tight squeeze,
Before I climbed out.

I galloped the single step,
Clutching the rickety pole
Tied to the triangular end of a rafter,
A handrail of the oddest sort,
And stepped on to the landing,
Carpeted with an old gunny sack,
Where I felt the grains of sand
Crunch beneath the soles of my slippers.

The well-sawed, but cheap sandy double door
Had swung wide open
Both parts resting against the wall,
Where the limewash barely concealed
The plastered cracks,
Standing out like continents
On the world map.

As I walked past the grandma’s bed,
I almost heard her mumbling, ‘Kollo…’
She must have mistaken me for my father, her son,
Lying on her back towards the wall,
On the clumsy bed sheet spread over the rush mat,
Covering the coir mattress,
Whose gunny sack cover had torn,
At several places.

I slipped in,
Without saying so much as a word,
So accustomed had I grown
To taking her grumbles and gripes for granted.

And I must have been deaf,
To the plain fact that her voice,
Was more markedly feeble than ever.

When I walked past her bed again,
She was lying on her back facing the wall,
Next to the bed,
Her right hand, almost limp,
Stretched outwards to her right,
Rested on the bed.

I convinced myself
She was breathing yet;
It was only when Aunt Rani, our benign neighbour,
Who came to feed her
Pronounced her dead,
That I knew I’d got it all wrong,
But, still wished I were right.

Perhaps, that was the way to die:
No final words, no last will,
No lachrymose leave-taking;

Now she was alive,
Now dead.