Another Daughter

Long and lustrous it has grown,
Oiled and firmly plaited,
But for the unkempt appearance of her little being.
Her eyes, the shade of melted sugar.
From the depths of dark, shone as tiny sparkles.
Drawing one into its depth of innocence.
Her smile was like a thousand splendid suns,
menacing over the dark clouds...
A streak of light, a bloom of hope
she painted them all along.
Her little feet almost bare and parched,
never really cared of the Earth that much.
For she was the bearer of wings,
that made her fly high..
Her tiny hands were dirty and sweaty,
in them had she once held the catastrophe of rejection.
They said she waited so long,
for her unmarried mother who never came back home.
Dejected, she had waited along the corridor,
a dark marauding soul shrinking slowly without a fight.
No one came, none at all..
Silently they said, she had swallowed,
the melancholy of rejection, the agony of  being unwanted.

Slowlyshe learned to smile.
And smile she did, over and over
mocking at the ruthless treachery of fate,
repressing the agony and pain.
She had looked at me at first with hope.
Hope that I'd stay a little longer,
than the others who came and went.
The others who fancied their selfies and candy cam's,
the others who made her a mocking doll
of sympathy and showering fake lullabies into her little ears.
All gone in a day or two maybe,
misleading opportunists they might seem.

As years pass by she hugs me with love,
and wants me to take her into my arms.
Did I see a tear twinkle,
or was it love?
Two souls we are, in search of one..
another daughter not born in my womb.
Your laughter so tender and precious,
reminds me of the day I became a mother.
To be reborn again and again
into the soft tenderness of love.
Just as she is to me, you are too my child.
Never leaving your side,
for I'd always flutter around you,
with large mighty wings full of love.
A guardian angel in being to all.

Sreelakshmi
(2016)