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The poem, “My Mother at Sixty-six” revolves around the theme of advancing age and the consequent fear of loss and separation. As the poet was on the way to airport in Cochin, she was struck by the realization that her mother was old and frail, and was overwhelmed by the fear of her parent’s impending death. She observed her mother, in her twilight years, pale and waning like the winter moon.
Like any other child, she too remembered having harboured the insecurity of losing a parent that seemed to be presently unfolding in her life. Beset with sorrow and insecurity, at the end of the poem, she bid goodbye to her aged mother at the airport. The poet undergoes the universal emotions of grief and fear of losing a parent to old age and death. Kamala Das’ eloquent and poignant verse brings out the motif of transience and passing time.