POKHREL, Suman

Colour of Horizon

Standing on top of each morning briefly

stopping by each evening shortly

unmindful, my eyes are chasing,

my eyelids are sweeping with light the sky

splattered with colours pilled out

after hitting horizon’s last shore.

I am thinking

what is this crimson,

colour of lovers’ hearts

torn from each other and

taking on to opposite paths,

or the reddish glow of minds

come together after

dark moments of separation?

Half of my life is soaked in colour

watching these red glows

spilled over the side-door that admits the day

and the bamboo portals

that shut out the day,

but could not understand

whether this earth and sky

part in the evening

and meet in the morning

or part in the morning

and meet in the evening!

Entanglements

Let me not so much be lost in involvements

as would make me incapable of

recognizing the fragrance of the flower

beaming in my own yard; as would

divest me of time

for the merry sports of children

glee with the total joy of creation

radiant in their midst.

As would render me oblivious of my time

for the wind carrying the scents of love,

for the birds chanting the notes of life,

for sparkling waterfalls falling yet gay

and, too, for the stars fireflies carry

through the immensity of darkness.

Let me not so much be swept by haste.

Let me not lose the sight of myself

in the rush of life’s vicious circles.

Let me not go spiraling towards a peak

where vision would be blinded with

tears, washing down life’s rubles.

Not so much be lost as would have

no time to look at myself

ever. Not so much, so much be lost, just

to see the hue, grace, glory gone

off the face of my beloved

as I’d wake and be conscious.

How long would I run after the

time,

my mind just a cosmos of void?

Will you please go journeying

for your own sake,

till I come living a moment of life?

(Translated from Nepali by Manu Manjil)

Fever

Fever painted me all over the body

with its warm kisses of love

for a duration unknown

Taking everything aside of my own being

it was a marvelous feel

to be cocooned into the grip

of this thin frenzy from head to toes

it was immensely ecstatic to

feel the passionate warmth over the skin

and was wildly delirious

to be caressed by its softness beneath the shell.

I want the fever to grab me forever

and want YOU

to be MY fever.

The Taj Mahal & My Love

Through years of my prime

I walked with a heart

crazy about love.

I wanted my heart to bloom

and shelter a shadow of love.

when the heart was soaked in passion

and was wet,

I wanted to wrench it dry

on love itself.

I wanted to paint a picture,

in indelible print, across

the canvass of my heart.

I stand today

in front of the Taj Mahal.

I watch the marble smiling

as the sunlight gives it a touch.

I feel gusts of wind

gone mad

as they come across

the heights of love here.

I listen to the music, waking in

the dream-eyed visitors' quiet hearts.

I am
tipsy after my

own feelings

themselves have become wine.

I forget myself, world and all.

I don't know

whether I'm thinking of Shah Jahan,

Mumtaj or myself.

I'm quite disillusioned, stupefied,

enveloped under an expanding heart.

Shah Jahan who proved

an emperor to be shorter than a lover,

who turned a grave into a temple

who gave his beloved a place of God

and converted love into a prayer.

there exists one difference between

us two.

he was all in all, and if

I'd ever grown prosperous like he was,

I'd not have waited for my beloved's death

before I erected a Taj Mahal.


Every morning

I wake up with the news

of bloodshed.

I feel my body,

desperate to know whether

I'm still alive.

I express my thankfulness

to the only Saviour:

"Thank God,

my name isn't in the list of those

who died or were

killed yesterday! "

Trees

My eyes are upon the trees.

For, trees do not live in fragments.

Till they fall, they stand

Flanked by life in its own embrace.

In the daytime sun is enough

In the rain, rain.

Their hunger does not outdo

The size of their won.

Breeze means a dance for them

Moon means joy.

When darkness accompanies them

They invite it for sports.

Trees do not seek to get

Beyond where their roots meet

They never dream of flying, Their

Roots in the air.

They do not need anything but

Soil to stand on.

They don't pine for a thing after

Branches, leaves, birds.

Trees do not allow, their dreams

To wander

Further than the horizon

Their eyes meet.

And I, weary of life's

Haste and woes,

Tired in the mind, body and all else,

Here sit on the earth low

And against the background of

The horizon of a rising moon,

Stare at the trees.

Ah! They are erect without cares

Those evergreen temples,

Across the landscape

Of my eyes.


Children

Even if they try to pluck it,
the flower submits itself onto their hands.
If it happens to prick their heels,
the thorn scorns itself all its life.

The dream too thinks twice, gets filtered to go soft
to be seated on their eyes.

Once positioned on their lips,
even the scariest of words
come out as a melodious lisp.

The hill river rushing downhill, mocking at birds,
having heard their clean laughter
repents for its pride
and flows quietly to Madhes.

Even If they fall during their play,
the nature, having come
under the spell of their creative sports,
doesn’t know when they again start to play so full of jest.
Believing that they fall unknowingly
the ground, mostly, does not even hurt them.

Even after the ages of exercise, not any flower could adopt
the innocence of their smile.
Instruments of music, after their company
with music maestros for centuries,
failed to acquire the sonority of their voice.

If they smash, the flower vase assumes a smile
while turning into pieces.
For a chance to be spilled by their hands,
anything they hold gets spilled itself full of happiness.
For a chance to play with them,
water forgets about its own colourlessness.

I wonder –
didn’t the Creator really do injustice?
With a power to defeat everyone without any battle,
children are busy at play with the most beautiful moments of their life.
Once they grow conscious of it,
those moments will have gone away
never to return to them.

(Translated by Mukul Dahal)

While Parting

I've also felt

all windows were watching

all walls were listening,

I'd also felt at that time

streets and footpaths were speaking

and veils were lifting.

I've felt

even when I was walking

even when I was stopping

all trees and birds

sky and stars

bosoms and bangles

were seeing everything.

It's true

in that hesitation

whether to stop or proceed

get off or get over,

all roads had appeared

unfathomable.

It's true

I had also read

on the face of surroundings

some broken

some disconnected

some cracked expectations.

I've touched some sentences

and have kissed some words.

Eyes that obstruct the road can be removed

but what happens when hearts block the passage?

that's why

I've also pretended not to see

the windows and walls.

At such time

it has also seemed to me

there've been conspiracies against me,

search for instruments

to hit me in my words

has also been going on.

I've also felt

those eyes and looks

have also been sending a river

of the flowers of feelings somewhere,

raising a hill of the aromas of imagination.

And have experienced at such time

my mind sleeping in the joy of love.

and have felt some arid passion taking me somewhere

lopping off sensitive branches of life.

At such moments

felt my mind wake up with the temptation of life

gathering courage for flowering beauty

even in the desert of living.

Do not think

I've reached where I am now

by slipping like a landslide

or evaporating like a cloud.

I've climbed up here

holding the hilt of time's sword

after driving it

into my tender heart.

Whether anybody comes to convince me or not

a part of my life does always ache

arresting my chest.

(Translated by Abhi Subedi)

You are, as You are

Standing on some non-life fringe of life

embracing non-existent shape

like winds that stopped blowing,

I would be living in illusions

with fossils of life’s zest.

I would regard meanings

given by others so far

as refreshing boon,

I would still be enamoured of rose

or any heartless flower's smell

if tender tides of your affection

had not suffused

the pollens of my heart

with loving aroma.

modulations of my song,

images of my poetry,

my life story,

all would be making

a tedious dumb run

with no destination

sans beauty like

sultry gusts of drought

that flow over leafless treetops.

Sunrays would not descend

to lift my spirit

each morning

bringing life.

birds that fly singing for me

would not know

how to sing

filling their throats with love

welling up from heart.

My pleasures would escape

by climbing up empty times

thinking that is life

though not knowing

even half the mystery of love

not knowing

how melodious life is

if you had not demolished

shape of life’s rhythm sometimes

by gripping my heart

tender like love

so fragile that

even your softest words

could break it.

if you had not created

the scenography of life

with countless colourful plays

of your wishes

my desires would wither away

by making false explanations

of the beauty of Creation.

If you were not

what you are

shaped by my life’s melodies,

one who is standing

before you

overflowing with energy

carrying myriad desires

that would not be me.