Ashesh Malla
Didn’t your lordship see the picture of Budhan
on the warm, steaming rice
decked on your sparkling plates
on your dining table?
Rolling over with sods of earth
in the mid-summer
in sizzling plains of the Tarai
exhausted Budhan
translates herself on seeds of rice
and has presently bumped
on the smooth, white sparkling
silver chests
on your dining table.
Didn’t your lordship see
the face of Budhan’s son
beset by malnutrition?
Didn’t your lordship see
the thoroughly-frayed breasts of Budhan’s wife?
Spilled all over your dining table
are seen-off dreams, stacked in rice sacks layered one upon the other
at the moment, they are flying
all over the dining table as hot vapor.
Didn’t your lordship get
a tinge of Budhan’s sweat in those vapors.
[Asesh Malla (b 1955) is a poet and playwright. He began his formal literary career in 1972, and continued through a terrain of poetry and playwriting. Agyat Pradeshharooma, Nirantar-Nirantar and Eklo Ekanta are his anthologies of poems. He also has several plays to his credit. A winner of Sajha Award, Moti Award, Musyachu Award, Best Dramatist Award and Best Director Award besides others, Malla is the founder of Sarwanam, a theater in Kathmandu. ]