'I Cannot remember my mother'- Touching Poem

Back in my school days we had wonderful poems in our syllabus.Hindi or English,the selected poems were excellent.Some of them left a lasting impression on my mind.And they keep popping up in my mind from time to time.'The solitary reaper', 'The Highwayman','The Brook','The road not taken' ,'Stopping by woods on a snowy evening' were some of my favorites.A million thanks to the people responsible for choosing these poems as part of our syllabus.Event though I don't remember the whole content of the poem some lines I don't think I will ever forget.
'Alone she reaps and alone she cuts' from Solitary Reaper
'For men may come and men go but I go on forever' from The Brook
'Two roads diverged in the woods and I took the less traveled by' from The Road not Taken
are some of the examples.
    Here for this post I would like to talk about one of the most touching and heart rending poems that I have ever read.'I cannot remember my mother' is a poem that will make your eyes moist.The whole poem is as follows

I CANNOT remember my mother,

only sometime in the midst of my play

a tune seems to hover over my playthings,

the tune of some song that she used to hum while rocking my cradle.

I cannot remember my mother,

but when in the early autumn morning

the smell of the shiuli flowers floats in the air,

the scent of the morning service in the temple comes to me as the

scent of my mother.

I cannot remember my mother,

only when from my bedroom window I send my eyes into the blue of

the distant sky,

I feel that the stillness of my mother's gaze on my face

has spread all over the sky.

Back in my school when I first read it I couldn't understand the poem.I had this habit of reading all the lessons and poems from my textbook at the start of the school year itself.So by myself I couldn't grasp the meaning of this poem.I made fun of the author thinking how can he not remember his mother.When our teacher explained this I got something but the process of realization of true meaning is best when it is self made.As the years passed by my rereading this gave me deeper meanings.The way the author remembers vaguely only three things the tune of his mother,the scent of his mother and the gaze of his mother.Beautiful! Those descriptions are just beautiful.No amount of plain writing can make the same impact as those lines make.
Of the three the third one is the most deep in my opinion.The author has only impressions of his mother as a child.When he looks at the blue sky he likens the sky to the gaze of his mother on his face.Touching! Those lines send a electric shiver down my whole body whenever I read them. To tell the truth it has turned my eyes moist a few times.
   I have a close friend who has lost her mother at a young age and when for the first time she told me about it,the lines of this poem were running in my mind and I could feel her pain.For the first time I could see what it is to not have a mother.The longing,the vague memories and the pain can crush a person.The last lines of the poem offers a hope that mother has gone nowhere but is above and is always watching over you.
   For all those who have lost your mother may god give you strength.