Song for an Un-known Daughter

You’re a child of my twilight years,

Never born to me,

Only visited in a dream

Or was it a vision?

I never heard you yelp in pain

Or groan in agony.

I never sang you lullabies

Or told you bed-time tales

I wasn’t around when your pencil was stolen   

Or your doll went kaput.

I never cuddled you like a doll

Or rocked you to a quiet slumber

I never drew margins in your notebooks

Or solved crazy puzzles for you 

I wasn’t around as a peacemaker

When your brother or sister fought you

Pulling and tugging at your pony-tails   

I wasn’t around when your teen troubles started

Or the pimples sprouted on your face

I didn’t see you through any of those days

Of your childhood and youth

When you missed your mother

Or defied your father

Only sometimes, you told me stories of exile

I could never understand

Though I saw the long haul of pain

And loneliness lurking in your eyes

I had no recipe for your silent questionings   

Only sometimes, when I reached out, hesitatingly  

My words fell short, and my actions failed

O daughter of mine!

You never let me pay the debt

A father often owes his child  

Instead you chose to awaken your good karma

To help you through trials of life   

Cast in gold, your soul now shines

In everything you say or do

The other day,  

When you came in a dream or a vision

Or whatever it was

Flashing messages of ‘moksha’ to me

I was wondering,

Who is the taught, and who the teacher?

Who, the giver and who, the receiver?

Now, I’m not too sure  

If you are only a child of my twilight years

Or my long lost mother, holding my little finger

Leading me back to the same track

From where I had once started out.   

When will this bloke ever grow up?

When I look into the mirror

My receding hairline,

Tufts of grey above my side-burns,

Crow’s feet around my lazy eyes,

Dark circles darkening in the broad daylight,

My slightly peppered, graying goatee, 

And the hardening of lines along the nose,

Suddenly stare back at me, 

As though mocking at the thoughts in my head.

When I look into the mirror

My bespectacled vision,

Clouded with heavy puffs of my sighs,  

As though cataract has descended early,

My knotted knuckles and twisted fingers, 

Aching bones, arthritic joints,  

And twingeing knees, crackling under my weight,  

Suddenly stare back at me, 

As though mocking at the thoughts in my head.

When I look into the mirror

My puffy face and baked skin,

Turning brown in the oven of time,

My midriff, ever expanding like population,      

Oodles of flesh gathered at all the wrong places,

Like lumpy pouches of poverty,  

My gout-ridden ankles and swollen feet,

Suddenly stare back at me, 

As though mocking at the thoughts in my head.

When I look into the mirror

I find youth has come and gone,

Without stopping at my door,

Like a postman in a hurry,

Rushing off to deliver parcels and letters, elsewhere,

Leaving behind a stamp of age,

As strong as my fate-lines,

Etched out in my palms,

I refused to open up.   

Now every time

I look into the mirror

An old man looks at me,  

And steps back,

Reflectively,

His spectacles slightly askew on his nose,

Sniggering at the shadows inside my head,

Wondering,

When will this 'bloke' ever grow up?