Surendra Gautam
“What is life?” When curiosity arose,
Someone showed the baby and the corpse together.
Love and hate simultaneously whirled into the mental horizon,
The value of breath and delicate body seemed irrefutable.
“Human existence” set out to find success, at dusk,
Returned with torn legs and raised palms.
When happiness and hard work made confluences,
The mirage of dreams and desires arose.
What is the fragrance of life? To unravel the mystery,
Someone caressed the clothes soaked in sweat.
The ‘future’ becomes a distant hypothesis, and,
The whole body inflates to run the ‘present’.
When the ‘grammar’ of the body deteriorates,
Then,
The palace of desires screws up.
The breath becomes repugnant, and,
Life is silhouetted against death.
[Surendra Gautam teaches at Shikha Secondary School at Annapurna Rural Municipality, Myagdi. An MA in English from the Central Department of English, Tribhuvan University, he loves writing poems.]