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I recently came across this poem by D.H.Lawrence. The novelist is famous for his exploration of repressed emotions and Oedipal conflict in some of his major works. This poem was a pleasant discovery. While I tried to locate Lawrence in the poem, my mind took me away to a time in future when I would be old and my son would remember the times when he was little and together we had played at the piano. It was nostalgia of a different kind.
Then my mind hovered back to my nest of childhood. I saw my mother singing ghazals. I saw my grandfather reading his newspaper while my grandmother opened her trunks to show me her crochet shawls she had done when she was young. I heard the hearty laughter of my father from the basement where his office was. The door to the basement stairs was ajar and I was spying to hear his joke and tell my mom. All I could hear was his laugh - energetic and unrestrained. I then saw my brother taking me back home from school. He was teasing me since once again I had failed to notice that our car was parked right in front and I had passed it and climbed the school-bus. He had honked but I was lost in my own world. I didn't hear and I didn't see. And he made a good joke out of it. Okay, I seemed angry at first but I joined him soon. He was so lively, how could his spirit not touch my soul.
Just then, I felt my cheeks were wet. Ah, tears....they were so slippery, I could not contain them longer. Taking a deep breath, I wiped them and looked around. What was it about memories? They made us smile, they made us cry, and still we clung to them as if they were the oars that would help us sail in the ocean of life. We held on to them as if they were the wings that would help us fly when the stormy wind tried to lead us to unknown paths.
How far had I come, I thought. Physically, I could never touch my grandparents, my father and my brother any more. They were on unknown shores on unseen lands. I saw them sometimes in my dreams, but just like dreams, they vanished when I opened my eyes. I wanted to touch my mom but we sat miles away from one another. But her presence was a solace. Like a light-house she shines, guiding me from afar, frustrating my fears, encouraging me to sail on.
Was I happy at that moment? I cannot say. I was happy to relive the past. But it was gone now, and that gave me pain. I missed my brother the most for I could not say my good-bye to him when he departed. Since I could not talk to him, I wrote this for him. May be his soul can read it.
The Tales I Will Tell
I wasn't born just a daughter
But a sister too -
A sister to you....
To me you were
Part of my childhood,
My other essence
Like two buds of the same plant
We grew together
Fighting for sunshine and space
Blooming despite the stormy winds
Striding many paths
Crossing many hurdles
And then one day, I decided to uproot myself -
Landing on alien soil
I persisted
While you floundered
On familiar grounds
I knew not you would wither away
Leaving me alone
Stranded
Abandoned
You always called yourself 'big'
Boasted you would forever be elder to me
As you were born before me
But as I venture forward with my beating heart,
And age
I search for you
Futilely
Vainly
Wanting to tell you
I have put more miles to my strides than you
Wanting to brag about my age
To show you I have more candles on the cake than yours
But also to tell you
I never wanted to be 'bigger' to you
That even when you are gone
You still remain and will forever be my 'Big' brother….
Our childhood has vanished
Just like you
But our memories will be carried forward
In the tales I will tell
About you and me
Tales of a little sister and her 'big' brother.....
Linking to IndiSpire Edition 126
Linking to Day 6 of Write Tribe Festival of Words # 5
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