Moharaj Shrama
Mother, if your wound wouldn’t ache, may I ask you something
About the time I lay across your lap
And sucked milk from your breasts,
About the time you mended my bruised heart
Making my eyes face yours, straight
Though like a chop-board you lay,
Offering me your lap, and with your grim smiles, making me elate!
Ripping your own throat, you said in a pampering mode
“Who will take the first gulp? Oh, it’s my honey, and no one else!”
Having attended every chore
Keeping back the sickle, dagger, basket and the tumpline
Thrashing, grinding, dhiki, grinder
Finishing chores inside and outside home
Field work and a daughter-in-law’s assignments—
When you were through all these,
You rushed to hold me tight, engulf in your bosoms, and plant kisses
Pouring immensurable love upon me!
What a great heart it was, always rippling of me!
What an extensive sky your heart concealed
Hopefully awaiting my appearance as the full-moon!
Mother!!
I have doubts—
Whether, in the vast firmament
A half-moon devoid of any light will appear
Or a moon, laden with lunar artist
Will ever appear in the full bloom of its light?
During your periods,
You ate at the porch
And often, you were slighted by family customs.
Today, I have reckoned
You needed care at such moments.
But to my regret
No one either cared for you
Or tendered any measure of love!
At times, your eyes let down
Torrents of summer downpour
And at moments they looked clear like a cloudless sky
Upon seeing me around!
Mother !!!
I only know how feeble the thread of your hope is!
How many summers you wasted on the same jenny!
How many falls you spent in that suffocation!
Even as the wheel of time rolls,
All your hairs are turning grey
Waiting for the moon to appear in your mind-sky
At the moment, I have a volley of questions
I am absent where you are.
How can I give you a sun
In a country wherefrom honor has been peeled off
How can I give you a Ram?
You, begot me and this land that begot you
But this land is mauled with fissures at the moment
Neither the policies, nor the leaders unite
Neither the mores, nor the customs ring right!
So that, when beliefs have transpired
And the soil from my own path has scaled off
When the country itself is missing
And all remnants have disappeared without leaving a trace
How can I assure you—
That the moon in your sky shall appear whole?
Translated from Nepali by Mahesh Paudyal
(Moharaj Sharma, a Nepali poet, is associated with AP 1 Television)