A portrait

‘The cardboard reminds me how it was
When the woman was sitting on the chair,
With my grandmother sitting beside her.

All three we smiled on that evening
At my father with the camera. A sweet face,
My mother’s, that was during the time of Dewali.
And now everything, which appears to have changed less,
Washed their terribly transient feet.

Some few years ago
She’d laughed at the snapshot.
“See, my daughter who’s standing and always with us,” she’d say, “and look here how she has
Dressed newly at the festival…”

But, everything is past….to her , her mother and to mine, my mother’s laughter-‘