Trails - 1 Poem by Matrika Pokharel

Nightlong, we would remain sleepless
talking about the day
and he, shut in a room
talked of night daylong.
We talked of the moon
for the upcoming
and he, housed in a corner,
sang of darkness.
Gradually, he thought of building
a swimming pool
filled with sweat
and looked at the crimson blood
of the orphaned mass
as something
as worthless as the red water
in a balloon
played with at the time of Holi.
And from that very moment
separate roads got carved out
one for him, and one for us
different routes of life.

We scribbled the dreams of Dukhiya Tharu
and made plans to quench his hunger;
we drew the reality of Kajiba,
hewed out a little from his obese belly
and dented a little, there.
He got startled with us.
Seeing the future of children
nurturing dreams on the street,
we wrote out our worries;
he shook on seeing us
and from that moment
new routes opened to us
and came up new plans.
Against him,
we drew separate new routes of life
straight and clear
for life that was otherwise crooked.


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