Father and My Birthday Poem by Rajendra Bhandari

Stretching wide his chest
my father readied the field, studded the boundary
with sal saplings
nurtured them with his blood.
Along with the gagun, the simal, the badahar trees
I too took root,
raised my head high.
My father remembers
the first harvesting day
more vividly than my birthday.
Father is as old as the courtyard's parijat,
as firm as a rock.
The wayside pebbles, earthy songs,
the whistling thrush, the rafters of the ancient house,
the rhythmic gong of the primary school,
sweating, hurrying, panicking,
the god, the usurer, the locality,
and Father.
An image of all these
dances before my eyes.
Father, the genesis of my universe,
the household primordial sound.
Father, the sun
around whose axis
rotate Mother, brothers, the neighbours.
Father, the unborn.
The ketaki bloomed in the garden.
I, on the portico.
A maize, an alder or a fig tree
have no birthday
and neither have I.
My father does not know my birthday.
What I do know definitely is
my features are gradually resembling
my father's.
Even my temples are graying
in much the same manner.
My father let his graying hair gray
while I engage in some black politics there.