Holding Back Tears
I didn’t know why on us the sky suddenly fell,
but in the surging storm of '47,
when the country was partitioned,
we got uprooted, and turned into drift wood,
until mother found a distant unsure land
for us to grow, and find life once again.
Times were real hard,
under the shroud of insecurity in an alien land,
and in the sweeping squall of uncertainty,
she toiled for years, and built for us a home.
In her soiled hands she sculptured my life,
and made me what I am today.
A time came when my job forced me
to leave her all alone in the ancestral house.
She won’t leave her home she toiled to make,
but promised she’d come one day, live with me.
That day never came, for she left her old home,
and went away to her new abode.
When she began her last journey,
I was overseas, couldn’t be by her side,
and months later I went to the house she left.
When I met her last she was sitting on a chair,
finding that vacant in the empty room,
I couldn’t hold back my tears.
____________
August 6, 2021
Title chosen : Holding Back Tears
Contest : This Or That, Vol 5
Sponsor : Edward Ibeh
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