The Death Rattle Poem by RAJ NANDY

THE DEATH RATTLE!

For days on end I heard that groan,
As if something was stuck in her
throat as she moaned;
A constant croaking in a subdued low
tone!
The doctor called it the ‘death rattle’, -
When the body begins to lament for the
departing soul!
Since all our earthly coming together,
Must one day surely end in departure!
That has been the general law of nature!
Then suddenly one day, during the early
hours of the morn,
All groans had ceased, as her body lay
cold,
It was an hour before the break of dawn!
My mother’s soul had passed on ……,
She must have seen a better dawn!

-Raj Nandy
New Delhi
27 Sep 08
(I had lost my mother a year prior to my
retirement from the I. A. F.)