Reparation to Mother - Three Poems by Vinita Agrawal

Reparation to Mother

Mother, I’ve come to erase

the ink of your loneliness,

pooling in corners

no coffee could warm.

I’ve come to gather

dahlias you grew by the well—

each petal a gift

I failed to name.

I bring to you

the tree you planted—

acacia arms holding the monkey’s cry

above the forest floor.

Give me

your bundle of worries,

your tower of bills

stacked like silent prayers.

Here’s aloe vera for the scratches

life left on your palms.

Tulsi for the chakras

I bruised in my haste.

Let me collect the numbers

you whispered to stars:

the price of rice,

the weight of my absence.

This barbet tuk-tuking outside,

let it stitch us back together, Mother,

back to the subconscious root

where we began.

You and I of one body,

one heart.

I offer you

the unbroken stillness of my love.

Not a thing to be worn

or sold,

but love’s soil

where your sacrifices bloom.

Unholdable Love

I have memorised the scripture

of your absence—

the way your laughter leaves

a bruise in the air,

the way your name, unsaid,

swells in my throat

like a second tongue.

I dream of you in colours

that don’t exist—

a red too deep for roses,

a blue that hums like a struck bell.

When I wake, the sheets are empty

but heavy, as if space itself

is holding the shape you left behind.

Fire loves the wind—

not for keeping, but for the burning,

for the way you turn my body

into something that can ache

and still call it worship.

If I could unlove you,

I would carve it from my ribs

with my own hands.

But the knife only finds your shadow

sleeping in the hollows of me,

your spirit drinking from my veins

like it’s the last water in the desert.

Tell me, what do you call a love

that is unholdable?

Homebound, Dusk

The road unwinds,

a grey river pulling me

supposedly towards warmth,

But dusk

has other guests.

Almost ghosts against the fading green,

they materialise: the deer.

Not fleeing, not challenging,

simply there—

unperturbed in the headlight sweep.

Absorbed,

not in surrender or defiance,

but in a rooted stillness I envy.

They stand their ground.

Tomorrow’s grass is already theirs.

Driving on,

it’s not their suddenness

beside the roaring metal

that cuts the deepest,

it’s their utter absorption.

While I am pulled taut

between destinations,

they bend low,

intent only on the next blade of grass

growing in the quiet margins.

Each deliberate mouthful,

is a silent reproach

to my rushing wheels,

a testament

to a belonging.

I ache

for mile after mile,

as the familiar fields blur past,

holding their quiet,

focused light.

---

About the Poet:

Vinita Agrawal lives in Indore, India. She has authored six books of poetry and edited two anthologies on climate change. She is the recipient of the Jayanta Mahapatra National Award for Literature 2024, the Proverse Prize Hong Kong 2021, the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 2018 and the Gayatri GaMarsh Memorial Award for Literary Excellence, USA, 2015. She co-edits the Yearbook series of Indian Poetry in  English. She was former Poetry Editor with Usawa Literary Review. She is on the Advisory Board of the Tagore Literary Prize.    www.vinitawords.com