The Last wink

Fed up with the world I lay
On my petient-bed for more than a couple of years
medicines,screens and bed-pans around
looking at the roof,through eyes behind tears

Not worse than a dead body
with a beating heart and thinking brains
What keeps the pale candle still burn?
Perhaps;my people's prayers and pains

Few weeks back there came an old woman
Wrapped by wrinkles her mysterious eyes would blink
Laughing through the mask,pulling the nurse's legs
enjoying the tasteless food she would wink and wink

Her friendship was an oasis in desert
I sang and laughed once again
Amazed at her sportive spirit
Responding to her winks every now and then!

One fearsome night they took her to ICU
maybe for an hour she was to survive
winking at me finally she said "Good bye!"
She smiled even when she was nomore alive..

Something happened inside;I felt a force
The force to 'live';the courage to 'die'
That last wink of hers taught me how
to 'be' with a smile...what's there to cry?

~ Pradnya Joshi
15 feb 2000.