Grandmother Fading

No more the strong Mover of Grace
Grandmother lies wide awake
Her stare boring through the ceiling,
Perhaps intruding some unknowable place.

We hover around, blinking in wait,
"Oh, did she just speak?"
"She did," someone says.
Some of us are naturally amazed.

The room of light grows in size
Holding her shrinking frame tight,
No pause in breath,
The air about a bit afreeze,
She waits, we wait.

There's pity right outside,
Where four or five or six can sit,
And wail and talk and curse fate -
"Why is life such a bitch?"
No one admits ignorance is the only real thing.
No one takes the name of death.

Fifteen whole months of agonising stillness
Has made her shriek, made her weep,
And eyes, which were planets of joy,
Have receded into a depressing wilding.
Grandmother smiles, smiles at a figure
Beyond me -only to call out to Nono
Who is so so long gone.

A journey that began in the 1920s
Teeteers towards the end,
Paths winding down lonely afternoons
Where she gestures to dead siblings.
As one who had four working limbs,
She detests the bed : all the sores
Hurt more with the prick of unsaid memories.

Grandmother flails her arms
Against the looming bedstead,
As a loss of words claims
The fading figure and every
Caregiver that cared to stay.

What happened to the starch
In her sarees and her spirit?
The innocent question bubbling
Within finds no certain outlet.
She waits, we wait.

Days turn into nights with clockwork
Precision, a pace she would miss
In the summer of her life.
Grandmother is now one with her bed,
A mingle of bones, dreams, drives,
And a smile that never left her side.
Focus, focus here, someone says,
Her eyes search for something,
We can only imagine.

The rain outside her window rains,
Seasons shedding their baggage,
But Grandmother lies gibbering
To her many lost selves,
And Time becomes the tide
She no more cares to wade.