A08 The Truth Came Out Poem by Rajaram Ramachandran

Mother Louis spent hours
At the neighbour’s house
Treating Croisine’s only son,
Attacked by a convulsion.

O’er his body, she applied oil,
That proved to be medicinal.
She shook him up and down,
To restore his blood circulation.

This trick worked every time,
Convulsive fits attacked him.
Croisine suffered with her child
Who was just two years’ old.

After this work tiresome,
Louise came back home,
To find no one was there.
Tired, she sank into a chair.

“Madame Millet was absent
A deficit in budget, it meant,
As no washing job in her house,
That caused a week’s wage loss.”

“Will Francois come home
At least with his income?
“What happened to the children?
Where had the girls gone? ”

With a troubled mind,
She was trying to find
The loss in her wage,
How best to manage

By then all of them,
One by one, came,
With their own account
Of the day’s event.

The two kids fell
In the dirty dunghill.
With their soiled dresses
They entered the house.

With brushwood bundles,
Next entered the girls,
As no income in his case,
Francois kept a blank face.

Born as an undaunted woman,
In the life track, she was beaten,
To face any such hard situation
And yet support her man.

She gave the kids a bath.
Dressed up the girls both,
Served her husband a drink,
No more time for her to think.

Marie could no longer hold,
And to her mother she told,
What Bernadette had seen,
A young lady of the cavern.

It was no more a secret
As the truth came out
Bernadette was first upset,
But then she confirmed it.