Nothing is what it seems

a friend of mine asked to write a poem where a parent consoles her child...the toughest part was writing from the parent's perspective...

THE MEDICINE

She is my little girl,

Her born to me, a world of dreams unfurled.

Every time she came to me,

With a smile on her face,

A picture she drew,

Or a prize she won,

There could be no better joy for one!

One day as I watered my plants,

I heard a voice amidst the branch,

My little girl has scraped her knee

Tear soaked cheeks and puffed up eyes I could hardly see,

My baby was in pain and she came to me,

“Mamma make the pain go away”, she said

Helpless I took her in my hand.

I blew on her wounds and kissed her face,

and walked to the porch with careful pace.

Dear, I can’t make the pain go away,

I’m no god, I’m no healer,

I’ll make you feel better and I will help you recover.

Baby, pain comes; it hurts you and makes you cry,

Though we don’t deserve it, it comes, I don’t know why!

Smile through your troubles honey,

Smile through your pain,

Smile even though pain conquers you again and again.

When rainy days are done, the sun will come,

So will your time when heaven knows you’re ready,

I looked down at my baby to see that she was smiling already!

The sky is the limit they say! Ever gone out on a cloudless night to stare hard and deep at the night sky? Nobody knows the secrets it holds, nobody can see what lies underneath that darkness and nobody can hear the million stories they have to tell…but if you just look harder, hear clearer and feel better, you might just be able to hear them whisper their tale. Why do people prefer to detach from their surroundings and get lost in the beauty of the stars when they are troubled? Maybe because the stars themselves are an example of however small a part we play in our lives, we each are unique and carry our own twinkle. Our troubles seem so little, like they have drifted far away from us and never find their way back to us and sometimes the beauty of the night gives us hope to look forward at the horizon and wait for a new day. Why do people wish upon stars? Because stars to us are eternal, just like the love and hope that is always alive in our hearts. The moon is the most wonderful celestial object…so calm, so gentle, yet giving a mellow glow to every corner its light can reach. Anyone can spend ages looking at it…even the busiest of beings and the richest of men have stopped, aghast at the beauty of the moon. No wonder it brings a smile to a woman’s face when she is compared to the moon.
I came from the city and I was always under a roof- inside a car, within the four walls of my house or under a cloud of pollution. It is when I moved miles away from the city to a poorly maintained hostel housing sixty four girls under one roof, that I really missed my space. I had nothing I could call my own. Privacy was a word I was beginning to forget. On a hot summer night, when the humidity was at its peak, the power had to fail! Drenched in sweat and unable to breathe, the lot from our room moved outside. Wearily I seated myself on the stairs. Frustrated by the number of chattering mouths around me, I looked up for I knew that was the only place where I wouldn’t see people and boy am I glad for every previous moment that led to this one for what I saw left me utterly spellbound. High up in the sky, cloudless and black, I saw millions of stars looking down at me, twinkling so brightly, I replayed the rhyme I learnt as a child and understood why they were called diamonds in the sky! Far away from city smoke, this place made me witness something I never would have if I had stuck to the luxury the metropolitan offered. Sometimes you need times like this to understand what you’re missing in life, what Mother Nature made for us to enjoy and what treats our eyes yearn to feast upon.

A BIRTHDAY WISH-NINETEEN YEARS HENCE!

They told me birthdays were special,

A day meant only for me!

A day when you’re the luckiest one alive

When nothing can go wrong;

And you feel so whole and free!

So year after year, I wait for my special day

And try to make it right

Waiting to see what life has in store for me,

Yearning to make a brand new discovery!

Before my 19^th, mamma told me,

-“This time the stars will align as on the day you were born to me”,

So I waited for my day once again…

Miles away from home, but still surrounded by the ones I love,

I could hear the stars repeating my story from above.

But at the end of my day as I sat reflecting

I realized I felt incomplete.

Puzzled I searched; my mind wandering light years at every step.

They say answers take long to find

But today on this special day I found mine

This wish may have reached you late as it took me till today to see,

That I’m no longer forlorn,

Because today is the day the other half of me was born!