What remains...

What remains...

What remains is not the poignant memory
of your sweet smile amidst taunts inflicted,
insults heaped like stones one after another,
for you did not want your siblings to know,
to share your predicament, servile at home
because of a nasty intruder, crafty and callous,
to share your prime possession, your happiness,
your conjugal love, an outcaste in your own house,
when the hungry, debaucheries, hawks ruled roost,
you helpless onlooker of the vile drama put up,
put up with the privations, none to console you,
at times fighting a loose battle with the deadly
venom of the cobras, counting your days to the grave
oh! When you were relieved, when death embraced
you, when your cruel husband reveled in the
embraces of his concubine, to whet her hunger
and fill her coffer she by backdoor entered,
a woe to mankind she is and a curse to womanhood,
oh!what remains is not the burnt ashes of you
kept in the urn to be immersed in the holy river,
what remains is not your saree, to be vied
by those ingrate wretches your daughters,
the shameless intruder’s daughter in the same
roof more dogmatically, claimed the only remnant,
what remains is not the memory of
earthenware utensils for the valuables were
embezzled by the pelican monsters,
what remains is not the old photo of yours
a semblance somewhat like you which
was hung by me on the wall,
oh!mother, what remains is the inerasable fact
none can equal you; none can compete with you,
what remains is the fact that the hungry pigs
continue to welter in the ditch until choked .