The Pink sweater that my mother knitted,

She knitted it throughout a year,

Her fingers bruised and loops she missed,

Her weak eyes strained to retrieve

And knit them back.

Her joint pain worsened and she grew plump,

And more cholesterol clogged her arteries.

The past she recalled as she knitted,

Her home in the hills and her siblings,

Her upright husband who sailed past life,

And her children’s rise and fall,

Her joy, grief and her worries and cares,

And the sleepless hours,

That she passed with prayers.

She hailed and viewed the cycle of changes,

As she knitted in betweens her day’s other errands.   

She saw grey winter gliding into spring,

And hope rejuvenating with green hues,

Weeping summer sliding with puddles and splashes,  

And dry leaves’ spirits haunting autumnal woods.        

Winter’s onset saw the sweater’s final form,

Complete and finished with love and care.

 With joy glistened eyes she handed

The sweater down to my daughter,

The pink sweater that still speaks of her,

Her story of one whole year that into it she knitted,

Against the silence that the final sleep  

Has wrapped her eternally with.

————- Dr. Fathema Begum