27 August 2023

Tired Fragrances

The wafted smell of jasmines,
While he passed the street yesterday.
Took him to the days when
His mother still fancied them
In her braid.

How his father brought her wreaths
From The local markets.
How even she herself,
Stood arguing with hawkers,
For an extra inch of the wreath..

But now she doesn't wear any.

While his father passed away
And in what forsaken book
It must have been etched,
About the husband-less women,
And the flowers she fancies.

And if the natural order is just
And beauty and desire are
True measure of existence..

Then in every market,
In the every hawker's wickers,
A handful of Jasmines that
Ought to be in a mother's braid..
Wither in tired fragrances.

And in all glory, when they
Waft past the noses of all the over-aged
Sons, they slap them awake to
The loneliness of their widowed
Mothers.