A bit more time

Listening to friends talking about their mothers;

One said – “She’s eighty, still hale and hearty,

Got to go home for dinner with her”.

Before he could continue, the other said,

“Mine is eighty too, she’s OK,

Though a bit slow in walking”.

Men of my age. Silent, I calculate -

If my mother were alive,

She’d be eighty three.

I wished she had married younger

And I were born first, so that

I could’ve spent, at the most

A bit more time with her.

Now that she’s gone

I wish she weren’t

Though there were times when alive

I had wished she weren't.

How foolish, how regrettably foolish

Not to love, not to be with

The ones who care for you most!

******** Balachandran V, Trivandrum, 12-01-2010