Seed Of My Father Poem by Anil Karki

I rode on his shoulder while he showed me the moon.
He told its name with a kiss in my ear.
'My moon, ' I said, 'Yours, ' he agreed.
And as we walked, it followed us home.

Holding my hand, he showed me a tree,
Picked an apple, and let me hold it.
I took a bite, then he took a bite.
'Ours? ' I asked, 'Yes, ours' he replied.

When I grew up, he showed me the sun.
He made me a wooden wheel on a stick,
Of pine wood, raw and bright as the sun.
I used to run and roll it.

A flashing circular saw was the sun,
Like the one he made my wheel with.
'This little wheel belongs to me, the big one to you.'
'Yes, ' he agreed, 'just as we belong to the sun.'

He let me plant the corn grains one by one
Out of a long box thrust in the ground.
I, who plant seeds for my father,
I'm the seed of my father.

When the corn was tall, it swallowed me up,
Whispering over my head, 'You're the seed of your father'
And when the husks were sere, my father with a hoe,
In the winter of the year, made a river beside it.

He made a garden, and he planted me.
Sun and moon he named and deeded to me.
Water and fire he created, created me,
He named me into a human being.

His breath he gave me, he gave me night and day.
His universe is in me fashioned from his clay.
I feed on the juice of the apple from his eternal tree.
Each poem I plant is a seedling from that tree.