Ammamma

Sitting here, in front of
this glowing screen
I wonder how to introduce you
when it becomes difficult even for you
to decide your true home.
Time unmercifully trudges on
your once-unlined face
with new contours of loveliness,
stealing the past from you
in your misty fugues,
and you cannot sometimes remember who
I am, and how I, (if I am to be who I am),
bypassed the shady lanes of your memory
to now present myself as more worldlier than I really am.
and so I capture your memory for you
and write you an ode
knowing you will never read these lines of remembrance -
but then you surprise me
and in a lucid brightness of a firm resolution
through the hazy wetness in your eyes,
you clasp my hands with the gentle firmness
that only age-spotted hands can have, and
tell me - "you, I shall never forget".