Her only Son in War

Dr. Sudhansu Dash

He was born unfinished and under weight

The mother could hold all of him

Just in less than a palm

Worried and waited for him to grow

Prepares herself to give the child to war

To leave him in a more dangerous place

Where something will go terribly wrong.

He is to be spared without despair or fear

She does not allow her heart to break apart

To fall as quiet and cold as the winter snow

The Statesmen have decided for the battle

But

It is the names their sons caught in their throat.

The mother gladly grows old

To sleep in the son’s shade

To keep herself closer than his shadow.

They say

‘Your child is sick in eating the bullets in his chest

Will be dispatched in the morning’.

Once her one palm was bigger than her son’s body

Now her two palms are smaller

To carry the son of the nation

To carry the pride

To be the mother of a soldier.

She makes it possible to bear the death of her son

Her unbearable good-bye is no more painful

He is born as my son only to die

Just for a word called

‘Martyr’

Unfounded in the dictionary of a mother

Just to allow her tears to gather

On the last letter he wrote her

Mother,

‘I am returning soon after a victory’

Mothers pray for the safety

The son in war

But one must die

To see the other a victory

God is but to allow one prayer and decline the other.

She does not want to put Him into a trouble

Than accepting herself

The mother

Whose son has gone not to return.