Amrita Smriti
After I saw you
I left heaven and came to you;
Born, thereafter, was a new life
Filled with life-tunes.
Together, we carved patterns of wishes
And arrayed innumerable dreams
With a lot of labor, we wove mats of love
And there we strewed our hearts
As tender as flowers.
You often said:
My Queen!
I rise with you
And with you I set;
Making you my sun
I continue like the sunflower;
Just let the full moon blemish on your lips.
I said—
My Love!
I rise with you
And with you I set;
Making you my sun
I continue as the sunflower;
Just let the full moon shine on your lips.
We both, as sunflowers,
Made each other our suns
And dedicated our dreams
To the interests of each other.
But time did not halt at this point;
With a heart stuffed with faith
You left the country
To pick time cleanly on your palm;
In the deep gashes of separation
I kept blaming myself with our love-laden talks
I brought back in reminiscence.
Since the day you left home
My Love, I remembered you so much—
The way a fish, left to writhe on the shore, remembers water
Drought remembers rain
Hunger remembers a piece of bread
And an infant, left alone in a crowd
Remembers its mother.
What would life be like
If there was no memory!
I gathered memories
And flew a kite of them
Hoping it would reach up to you.
Who was that who came on the way
With a weapon of eyes
And snapped the thread?
The kite was lost
I was shattered
With no limit to my breakage;
My wishes were mourners
In the funeral of fellow wishes.
By picking colorless teardrops
I wrote a love letter
Smearing in it the hues of hopes.
Would you be able to read lines scribbled in tears?
Would these questions bump against the finest corners in your heart?
Is there or not a rise of a sour reverberations?
Is there or not any pleasing melody striking your ears?
Is there or not any dim picture reaching your eyes?
My king!
Is the heart an inn
Where anyone can come
And from where, anyone can leave?
Trans: Mahesh Paudyal
[Amrita Smriti is pursuing her MA in English from Tribhuvan University. She is a published author with two collections of poems to her credit. Also a literary activist, she is the founder/chairperson of Srashtha Pratishthan Nepal, a literary organization. ]