Listen, mother, <br />My songs are eyes <br />Stinging with grains of separation. <br />In the middle of the night , <br />They wake and weep for dead friends. <br />Mother, I cannot sleep. <br /> <br />Upon them I lay strips of moonlight <br />Soaked in perfume, <br />But the pain does not recede. <br />I foment them <br />With warm sighs <br />Yet they turn on me ferociously. <br /> <br />I am still young, <br />And need guidance myself. <br />Who can advise him? <br />Mother, would you tell him, <br />To clench his lips when he weeps, <br />Or the world will hear him cry. <br /> <br />Tell him, mother, to swallow the bread <br />Of separation. <br />He is fated to mourn. <br />Tell him to lick the salty dew <br />On the roses of sorrow, <br />And stay strong. <br /> <br />Where are the snake handlers <br />From whom I can beg for a shroud to cover me? <br />Somebody give me a shroud that will fit! <br />How can I wait like a jogi <br />At the doorstep of these people <br />Greedy for gold? <br /> <br />Listen, o my pain, <br />Love is like a butterfly <br />Pinned forever to a stake. <br />It is like a bee, <br />From whom desire, <br />Stays miles away. <br /> <br />Love is a palace <br />Where, but for birds, <br />Nothing else lives. <br />Love is a hearth <br />Where the bed of fulfillment, <br />Is never laid. <br /> <br />Mother, tell him not to <br />Call out the name of his dead friends <br />So loudly in the middle of the night. <br />When I am gone, I fear <br />That this malicious world, <br />Will say that my songs were evil. <br /> <br />Listen, o mother <br />My songs are eyes <br />Stinging with grains of separation. <br />In the middle of the night , <br />They wake and weep for dead friends. <br />Mother, I cannot sleep.<br /><br />Shiv Kumar Batalvi<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/listen-mother-2/
