The Ancestral Home Poem by Ruta Mohapatra

Pradyot voluntarily retired
Left the metro city for good
And shifted to his ancestral home
In a small temple town

Four helpers carefully carried away
His parents' old rickety bed
To be replaced by his own
And swept the dusty floor

A metallic sound made him bend
And pick up from the floor
An old one rupee coin
Blackened but intact

Like a reel of film unfolding
He saw on the wall of the room
The image of a simple man
With a newspaper under his arm

Taking out the same old coin
Then bright yellowish brown
To place in the palm of a boy
And caress his mop of hair

The boy trying to insert it
Into the piggy bank on a table
Which slips and rolls under the bed
Never to be found again

He pressed the coin in his palm
Felt the warmth of his father's hand
Remembered his large palms
And felt his love once again