WAITING

Waiting for sunrise
And the calls from back home to start.

Dreading the call,
Yearning for the call.
For the neighbour to say,
“Your father is breathing, he is eating.”

Waiting for the money transfer to go through.
“You need to pay within two hours or lose the bed.”
Parents waiting in Reception for entry into the hospital,
The living and the dead equally silent.

Waiting for air, hell is no oxygen.

“Sorry, ventilator is for four hours only, others are
waiting.”
“The doctor had a kind voice,” my mother says
While waiting in the corridor for her beloved’s body to
be bagged.

Waiting in the car park for the cremation,
His body shrouded in her sari.
Ambulance number 1722, token number 284.
Dozens of pyres lighting the sky, a 42°C summer.

On the long journey home with an empty house waiting.
Waiting at home, imprisoned by the virus.
Waiting for vaccines without borders,
For sharers, not hoarders.

Waiting for larger hearts, smaller egos.
Meanwhile, we live, work, and breathe.
Waiting for the thump-thump of guilt to subside,
For the flood-tide of despair to recede.

Waiting for a different dawn,
Waiting to embrace my motherland and mine.

———

• Kishore Chandiraani
• Consultant Psychiatrist, Emotions Clinic Education and Training Centre, Staffordshire. England
• www.undoyourstress.com