Rain Dance

My mother puts on her royal attire To do the rain dance of a princess, But her feet are barren, For it no longer rains like before. Years ago, I watched mother dance, Her fingers plucking moon petals, And dropping them on my sleepy eyelids While I laughed in pleasure On iridescent nights in a land of dreams. We could hear father reciting faraway verses In his bedroom; his words stepped out To the porch and joined mother In her dance with the moon. Today, I stopped mother in her attempt to dance Under a dark sky of gunpowder smoke And in the company of drunk shadows Of dry mango trees wafting in wild winds, And she gives up quietly. An explosion shatters the silence, And mother wriggles her feet, Her heels grinding the burning earth. She looks at me with wet eyes and says, 'Son, it thunders, let me dance', and I see only the raindrops in her eyes. But it no longer rains like before In the land where mother lives.