Of patience in the face of pain

In vain do the men praise Karna

Who gritted hus teeth and bore 

The pain of an insect bite

As his preceptor slept on his bite

In vain do they praise him

For something

A mother does

Several times a day

And ask her how a night passes

With the baby's teeth and mouth

Glued to the softest, most delicate

Part of her body

Its nails curled around it protectively

Each ready to bite and cut and lash

As the mother

Supine

Tries this position and that

A back curved

An arm pressed

Hair pulled

Legs bent and squashed

All so that 

The baby doesn't wake

And if she is lucky

This happens

Only once a night

For two years

Until another baby

A wet walk

It is very recently

That I was introduced

To the pleasures of

Walking in the rain

If it can be called pleasure

Not the warm, sprinkly,

Romantic, Bollywood kind

But the grim, wet, cold kind

That leads you

Into yourself

I imagine going off

Under an umbrella

Getting slightly wet

Ruminating, imploding

Thoughts becoming

More and more dense

In the limitation, suffocation

Imposed by isolation

Wisps forming into threads

And threads weaving into braids

Or forming tapesteries

Showing me 

Strange new patterns

Unprecedented and unseen

Beautiful and unexpected 

Sights that would 

Never have appeared

Without that specific moment

And which will always

Stay with you 

The rarity of their discovery

Startling you evermore

And I think of

How late I discovered

All this

And how little time 

I have left now

To explore it

Just thirty years, maybe

So little, so little

It makes me brace up

And learn to treat

Every occasion

With the intensity

Deserving

Of its rarity 

Moulting

Sometimes,

I think of the things

I worried so much about

Clenching my teeth

Not sleeping

Getting myself in a royal funk

And wonder

Why I bothered

It's so light

Without the burdens

The eye

When the hurricane

That is regular life

Threatens to pull me

In a thousand different directions

I am trying to remind myself

That

The center of the hurricane

The eye around which

The storm revolves

At break-neck speed

Is perfectly still

It is difficult to remember

Every time

But

You must keep it together,

Woman