Witness Poem by Madathil Rajendran Nair

I sat there watching
Without eyelids batting
Timeless eternal witness

My boy is out there
A tot running up and down
The difficult stairs of dream and wake

Falling hither and thither
His punched nose bleeding
Bruised all over everywhere

Tears flowing down his cheeks
Screaming, hollering
Ascending, descending

Rolling in dirt, at times
Thumping his chest
Growling like an African ape

Can anyone describe his grief
The escapades of his ego
That sulks refusing to accept, forego
Fighting with the monsters of a nightmare
Called life by everyone everywhere?

The poor boy fighting day and night
Gruesome battles without respite
Yet, he would return when tired outright
To my lap white as it is
Ever inviting, without a blemish

I sat there waiting for him to arrive
Repose and forget his worries
Dissolve and vanish into my vastness
Like thundering lightnings that die into the skies

I sat there a whiteness unbound
Silence! the boy is asleep sound
The poor thing is no more twain
Once again, before the spasm begins in the morn again