Companionship

Loneliness isn’t solitude

It’s a lack of presence,

When his wife was busy

With chores and children

He felt lonely without his books:

Then blindness took them away;

The paucity nearly killed him.

Thence his partner’s words

Eased his loneliness

Into their evenings

Poured in  soft sounds:

Muffled footsteps hurrying

Into his study, 

A soft thud of hard bounds

 Of rustling pages followed by her rhythmic cadence.

Slowly she became his world

He discerned the heavy silence

Deliberate poetic pauses,

Times when she cleared her throat,

And sipped at water

To begin reading again.

So attuned to her was he

That their hearts beat in unison

With murmurs of her gentle voice

Rising and falling, 

He felt her presence

 fill his life.

© Mumtaz N Khorakiwala

03-01-2021

Picture courtesy: Thought Catalog

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*Here goes Letter ‘C’, still cracking ‘ B’.