Tears Can Come Anytime

Graphite pencil art by Anthony Gartmond, New Jersey, USA

Child: I see you. I see you, a soft bundle of heaven. A melodious dreamland in a tender wrap. One I imagined you’d be handed to me in for the first time. First time when you and I’d bond…birthed flesh to flesh, gene to gene, soul to soul. That delicate wrap. One that you later lay snugly tucked in a bassinet, wide eyed, cooing, seeking me for sustenance, cleaning, connecting. I fly in and out of waterfalls and effervescences nestling with you in budding jasmines, hearing hundreds of soft flute hums and temple bells as I wonder why heaven came down and said, “Hello, mom, I’m baby Krishna, here just for you”. What did I do to deserve you? Ageing, sagacious gurus join me as we cry our hearts out.

Parents: I see you, see you both, in separate hospital rooms, on separate hospital beds, at separate times. No sound from either. Just silent, unsuccessful attempts to pull out feeding tubes or bear the pain. I didn’t need airplanes to get to you. Yet when you both flew away, a pea each in two pods, I wasn’t in either. I ran from one to the other, yet you remained just a bit ahead, just a bit too far for me to catch. To beseech. To beg to return. And then, Antarctic emptiness came and sat next to me as if I needed it more. When you and your dreams fragmented, your tears became mine.

Lover: I see him, see him as he walked around with ease in his unclothed skin, his muscled frame still chiselled and wanting. I lost my hesitations soon enough as my nakedness still revealed an hourglass figure. As night somersaulted into dawn, his baritone kissed my husky. And blooming plants in his living room seemed to be whispering agreeably, as did the smiling exercise machines. Nature and nurture had trained us well to enjoy another love after a long drought. Tears finally filled the driest riverbeds in the Atacama Desert.

*Krishna is a major God in Hinduism and considered an incarnation of Lord Vishnu *Antarctica: US Antarctica Participant guide calls it the emptiest pace on earth *the Atacama Desert: In Chile, it said that some river beds there have been dried for 120,000 years