Whispers of a Primary Caregiver | Breast Cancer Awareness Month

The poems, titled ‘Homeland’ and ‘Laburnum,’ delve into the emotional landscape of caregiving, highlighting both the challenges and the profound moments of connection that arise during this journey.

The poems may resonate with many, offering insight and empathy to those who find themselves in similar roles.

Homeland

there is salt in us; everything drifts past

this present

like the trams that the government

disowned

on the wall, a painting – a cat and half eaten apples;

a pair of white eyes, no eyelash

only a tired smile of an evening tram returning

to the terminus

white linens, a waiting chair

to bid time

a clock ticking somewhere

we have upturned mountains, cut the trees,

sold off city walls

I observe

how each burnt drop

of chemo infusion seeks a cure

in your riverine body, now drying up

in each drop, a morning prayer

Laburnum 

At the end of it all, we are walking 

through April: a burnt month 

like overdone toasts, election campaigns and laburnum – 

the perfect hints for our follies to believe 

too much in natural justice. 

With a hot yawn above our head in April, 

two thousand twenty-four, we meet again 

in a hospital, Dolma Wangmo, 

when all the yellow laburnum trees in the city 

are burning. For no reason.

There is no god in the dry air, 

in Calcutta, near a private hospital.

I go near your bed. You seem framed

in the cabin like a fragile painting, 

you brighten up. Like a living room 

on a hot summer afternoon - warm 

and breezy, in Nineteen hundred eighty-nine, 

the year of excess and ecstasy.

You rise with difficulty and sit 

on the edge of your bed, smiling: as if a woman stuck

in adolescence, as if you are about to play

some intriguing games again, Janet. Say,

reverse charades.

You look at my eyes like a surveyor

of breaking waves 

on a remote shoreline while the nurse warns you

to take it easy. It is natural for you.

I know you are always happy to see me. 

But nineteen hundred eighty-nine 

is not two thousand twenty-four. 

Everything changes between two hot April 

afternoons. The world can be easily divided

into five uneven slices without any reason.

Dolma Wangmo, you seem pale, 

hands trembling. They are as slender 

as an artist. You are not an artist, Dolma Wangmo.

You are an impossible romantic, 

life’s favourite actor. 

I wish I could bring some laburnum 

from this yellow April, two thousand twenty-four. 

The visit will be over in the next ten minutes.

So many things always remain unsaid, 

Dolma Wangmo! I find a joyful nerve dancing on

the left side of your forehead.

I lean forward, my empty hands hold 

your empty hands.