Joy of Mother Indira

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Hello Reader,

Got joy?

At our Friday Free Fall writing a lady of East Indian heritage did a poem about how her parents were so pleased, here in the New World, to have a Ford car, a house that wasn’t made of mud, and—I forget what else she wrote. She was writing to honor and appreciate her parents. Me too, in my own poems. I said, “Well, I have a poetry manuscript… where some of the poems deal with poverty after the Martians.” I didn’t tell her that one of the characters was someone the British would call Asian, or, less often, South Asian.

Mother Indira

Mother Indira, 

who fled harsh parents in India, 

once had crumbs of love, 

lots of learned books, 

but no husband or children.

Now in a commune she knows love and orphans.

Harry and Molly have lost their father and mother

but not their need for love

to fill them in the morning and at bedtime. 

Mother Indira wears army boots,

and a sensible sweater under a thin pretty shawl.

Harry enters the kitchen,

“May I please have a glass of milk?”

“Have you had one today?”

“No.”

“Then you may.”

Molly enters the kitchen,

“May I please have a slice of bread?”

“Have you had one today?”

“No.”

“Then you may.”

Mother Indira saws the bread for Molly,

as Molly always ends up cutting a triangle.

Molly returns the loaf to the breadbox.

Mother Indira clomps around the kitchen.

There is a little extra milk,

and a little extra bread.

Her eyes crinkle with affection,

thinking how surprised the kids will be to have this dessert.

“Bread pudding—oh boy!”

“You may, you may, you may” 

Sean Crawford

Central London

February

2020