Labourer's Labour

Imran Pathan

A miserable daily wager
 With her near due date,
 But no one does care.
 Among her numerous plight,
 Covid-19 is another sight.
 A shattered hope, to the shattered home,
 She’s moving back barefoot.
 Death is hovering in starvation.
 Death is hovering in migration.
 
 The marginalized flower
 Of a developing nation,
 Wavering without cower,
 Bears burden of baby bump.
 
 Tempest of troubles squeezes her.
 A child on back and a foetus in womb,
 Under the burning sun,
 On the earth oven,
 On foot, she covers long distance.
 
 For water, her lips are petals wilted.
 In heat eyelids are leaves inflicted.
 She’s been walking in May heat for days,
 Destiny is still hundreds of miles away.
 The selfish merciless eyes
 Ignoring the woman, vehicles fly.
 

O hark! the pain of the pregnant mother.
 She quivers and trembles and faints.
 Women labourers gather to help.
 It’s the pain of spontaneous labour.
 Under the scorching skyward,
 On the hot earth bed,
 With walls of curtains torn,
 No obstetrician, no anesthesia,
 The storms of pain born.
 O hear! her hungry screams!
 And hear her weary woe!
 Her elder son cries with fear,
 With his father pacing anxious near.
 Her pain of stretching and widening,
 The unbearable travail of birth-giving.
 Crowning to the new labourer to enter
 The wicked selfish world and to suffer.
 Swaddled in rags, the baby opens eyes
 Under the hot roof of infinite sky,
 The mother cuddles the baby with smile.
 Bearing postpartum pain,
 She resumes the journey of miles.