She sits at her window,
Waiting for something to stir,
The monotony of her days,
The days too long and nights too cold.
She waits for the sound of the fishmonger,
The postman who only brings her bills,
The bickering of the couple next door,
Quarrelling over little things.
Then she waits for lunch,
The only meal she has for the day,
She is never hungry or thirsty,
A very low appetite, she says.
Then she takes her rosary,
Starts muttering under her breath,
Almost mechanical in its murmur,
Grown repetitive over the days.
She notices the two magnanimous tress,
One that still attracts the birds,
And a grand fur that was destroyed in half,
By a fierce lightening, a long time ago.
She wishes that the other half was there,
That she could glue in to the king-size stump,
She waits and prays her end would be near,
That it is enough; this has to stop!
She does this every single day, in fact,
She has seen enough wars,
The lives claimed in her lifetime,
Oh! The futility of dreams so fine.
It starts to drizzle now, the rain dismal and grim,
The raindrops in her garden,
The grass taller than her chrysanthemums,
The smell of leaf and mud combined.
She sighs and then smiles,
This is what she knows,
What is familiar, she has begun to like it,
The cheerless dark humour.
Now it starts to rain,
Pouring rain, as she remembers the clothes,
It’s too late to go out and get them now,
There is another nightgown for tonight.
The rain is stronger now, the gutters giving way,
This is her rain, the rain she likes,
The loud gashing on her roof,
At times she wished it would collapse in her sleep.
She watches the rain now subsiding,
Almost dancing with the wind again,
A new performance of art she says,
The rain so fresh, so enticing.
A strong wind blows through the windows,
Almost ripping her shabby white curtains,
She hurriedly goes to her dressing table,
To grab the photographs of her fighter sons.
She curses the wind to stop and,
Goes to the window, shuts it with a loud thud,
She turns back to sit in her arm chair,
Holding the pictures against her belly.
She hears their voices that filled the cottage once,
She closes her eyes, ‘my babies’ she says,
And starts humming a lullaby,
A folk song that remains the same.