Grandmother

She was the mother to all In our house Mother to me and my father, To my mother and to my siblings She was eighty when I remembered her last And her hair was black She was proud that she could walk straight Weak people bend before others Once the man who milked our cows Asked her if she would live for ever If you can thread hundred needles In fifty blinks of my eyes He did not ask again And no one as her answer was like that She lived a score years longer Than our grandfather She died when the house became empty All were gone to towns for jobs She missed being called Ma Even the house parrot had forgotten her