Baba

I remember the work-coarsened hands
With calluses born from lifting loads;
Your booming laughs and gruff commands,
When you returned from the dusty roads.

The cotton trousers and faded shirts,
The threads dangling from the worn-out cuff:
I could not guess your many hurts,
I did not know you well enough.

But sometime during the final days,
When your big heart was beating still,
You’d follow with an intent gaze,
The playing birds on the window-sill.

Your wrinkled brows and sun-burnt skin,
Did not dim the shine in your eyes:
I saw a child’s delighted grin,
The joys no ageing could disguise.

Now you’ve sailed away for other lands,
Content and happy as you could be:
But I remember those callused hands
That was the entire world to me.

Diptesh Ghosh