Here/There
Searching images
of Himal’s shadow spreading
in the icy depths of the Pacific Ocean
on the steps of escalators
recalling Lisno, the ladders
dug in scented tree trunks,
recalling hillside courtyards,
resting-plinths, mule path
hearts shattered here
in slow sledges there
Having saved my body
from a sky aflame
piece by piece
never to be extinguished fire
like an indomitable warrior
in the city making analogies,
parallels of Dharara , Ghantagarh tower
for now postponing a desire
to spend a life there
in a secret chamber of my hear
I came back
Having encaged the free sky
of the mighty Continent
in a tiny briefcase
I came back,
to languish here, in a corner of
a divided, famished sky
Having discovered an ocean
having tied a complete world
in a laptop or ipad
all set to start my G search
of old acquaintances, older faces,
to keep looking
into the glistening mirrors of Himal,
like an old wind, I returned,
like sightings of familiar faces,
I came back to this land
of my forgotten hungers.
Translated from the Nepali by Yuyutsu Sharma
Constitution
Constitution isn’t some book’s name,
nor is it a fresh weapon from some nuclear arsenal
a blue stretch of a sky
a bird’s exuberant attempt to fly
a cry of a gurgling brook
a prism of some jubilant vision
Or is it some plastic plaything?
The questions like the Monsoon
showers are battering plains of our mind.
Tell me which manual of mantras
which fragment of a blue sky
which network
of some novel app would you distribute?
Do you know it isn’t name of
a new chocolate bar advertised by some agency.
A constitution is a nation’s youth,
it’s a tumultuous brook and its quaking banks.
It’s an idea, an outlook, a vision:
a boat and its continuous journey.
Don’t tell me it’s just a book,
it’s loaf of bread,
it’s a sun,
a sky and its blue dream.
Translated from the Nepali by Yuyutsu Sharma