I REMEMBER (A POEM)

I remember my daughter at six,

Sitting on my favorite uncle’s lap

In my father’s house on Good Friday

Telling him the story of Crucifixion.

She choked with uncontrollable tears

When Jesus was nailed to the Cross

And His side was pierced by a lance,

And could not go on with the tale!

My uncle, the good veteran Marxist

To whom Christ didn’t mean anything,

Wiped her tears and consoled her

With words alien to Red comrades.

My second child, only in her panties

For the terrible merciless summer heat,

Seeing her sister cry let out a howl

Which woke up my suffering mother,

Biding her time with cruel cancer,

Counting days, before her curtain call.

Breakfast found my first born listless

With no appetite for Jesus was dead!

The younger one, now in a pretty frock

Was wiser for she knew the story better.

She loved feasting more than fasting,

Jesus would rise only two days later;

No point in starving till his reappearance;

The Lord himself wouldn’t approve of it.

Many years from then – Time’s scythe

Has taken away my parents to picnic

In the Lord’s Garden, harried by nothing,

To rest from their labors and cares.

Many a time has Jesus been nailed over

And resurrected in churches without number;

So many sermons and tons of pious words

Have been expended eulogizing His Sacrifice

For the ungrateful, uncomprehending humanity

That the grand Church ritual has lost its savor!

Will my grandchild sitting now on my lap,

A few years hence listening to the same tale

Shed fresh tears for the faultless Noble One

Or find fresh significance in His Passion!