Mothers are not writing recipe books anymore.
No half kg of butter mixed with one tablespoon of cinnamon powder scribbled on torn pages.
No recipes are getting handed down to the next generation
There is no fragrance of oil in old washed-out nighties.
No smells of fish curry on a Sunday afternoon either.
Mothers don't call each other,
To recite the recipes on phones anymore.
There is no batter prepared at 11:30 pm.
No species are drying on the terrace either.
No carpet next to it where mothers would oil their hair every afternoon.
Mothers are not having afternoon naps,
all of them together after the 11 am tea.
They are not heading to the Wednesday sabzi mandi at 5 pm to buy fruits and vegetables for the family.
They are not bargaining with the women from the nearby villages
Mothers do not have a pouch to keep the money tied around their waist,
They don't have the keys either.
Oranges are not peeled off one by one and placed in the fridge for anyone to walk in and eat.
No used lemon is stored carefully sealed in the glass jar for pickles.
No curd stored in the earthen pot either
No milk with dates is secretly prepared to soothe the menstrual pain
No turmeric marks are left on the latest covers of Grishobhas and Feminas
Mothers are not sitting for lunch after everyone is fed at home
They are not going to inspire poems, exhibition walls and theatres
Never ever going to scintillate your nostalgia in sepia tones
they are not going to be unsung heroes of the households
There are no paintings of three women sitting on the kitchen floor staring into your soul.
No silence in the afternoon when everyone is gone
In a shared household of four or five,
mothers are not doing anything
In my dream, they do nothing at all.
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This poem makes me sad, but it also makes me realize the truth in all of it. No, there are very few mothers doing things like that anymore. (I'm very blessed to be homeschooled, and my mother is at home.)
(We have just about ten.)
My favorite part, the one that made me saddest, was this part:
"They are not going to inspire poems, exhibition walls and theatres"
I mean, can you have a world without children getting inspiration from their mothers! The world is definitely different than it used to be.
Each line of your poem showed a different part of who a mother is, and what they do.
"Oranges are not peeled off one by one and placed in the fridge for anyone to walk in and eat" Mothers are (or used to be) very caring.
"In a shared household of four or five,/mothers are not doing anything" We have more than four or five at our house.
The last few lines show your tone and your emotion, and also rounds off the poem quite nicely!
Sincerely, Mingan
Follow your heart, and nothing can go wrong. (Concerning writing.)
Thanks for your feedback
Glad that you see the truth behind the sadness.
I have grown up in a society that assigns endless roles to mothers, which are unnecessary and could be shared. Just because they are mothers, they don't have to do all the work at home. In my family and around me, I have grown up watching women do household work tirelessly and they are the only ones who are doing it even if there are other members who are totally capable of taking care of themselves. As a result, we have men who are massively entitled and this whole thing of 'women need to do all the household work' gets repeated in every generation.
how about seeing them not to anything at all-that would be slightly rebellious, isn't it
Hi TheRescueProject!
Here's a review for you!
First off, interesting poem about the roles of a mother (or the lack thereof).
I particularly liked this line. I think that describing part of a recipe like this adds to the imagery of the poem. Also, I enjoyed the use of "scribbled" and "torn" which is a nice touch to the sentence instead of just saying "written on pages". I do think this line and a few others are a bit too long though, so they could be separated a little in order to bring more rhythm into the poem.
I really liked that you included this last piece and I feel it completes the tone of the poem. I feel like the tone could be one of two things, but I'm not entirely sure which. In the beginning and middle, the speaker is bittersweet that society has changed and women don't have to do what's listed in the poem anymore. Then, at the end it almost feels like resentment, but you included the word "dream". A dream is a hope, a desire, something you strive for. So, could it be freedom?
Anyways, these were my thoughts! Great job and keep writing!
Thanks a lot for your feedback.
I agree that the lines are longer. Definitely working on improving that. This really helps. thanks a lot for pointing that out.
No problem! I'm happy I could be of some help!