Grandpa Poem by Sasanka Sekhar Panda

Day by day time covered your frail body
with dark sketches
and your eyes went almost blind
and day by day
your shadow grew thinner and thinner.

Grandpa!
did you know it before-hand
in those last weeks
that darkness was weaving ugly designs,
motifs and tattoos
on your graceful skin?

At last
I saw your departure
from darkness to light
from light to its epicenter - a bright speck
like the burning sun,
where your Aatmaa* merged in the air,
in the sea
and in the limitless blue.
I saw your departure for Eternity:
the greenery of the meadows,
and the flower-bedecked garden.

And even now
after long thirty years
once in a year
as I pay tribute at your Samaadhi**
the tranquil flow of your benedictory eyes
drops like dews on all of us.

* Aatmaa: The Hindu concept of Soul, which never dies.

** Samaadhi: The Hindu Tomb.