Umesh Akinchan
O Queen of Beauty!
Crammed for centuries
in a photo frame
how long shall you await
the arrival of sun and rain!
I want to gift you
a bird
flying in the blue firmament
You should wear the smile of seasons;
you should change the definitions of beauty.
I won’t confer upon you
any epithet on credit
like the one spelled by
a fast-flowing wind
that comes and fleets away
Like—
“I have planted
in your eyes
a world of dreams;
have cloaked
with your chador
the ghastly face of sorrow
I have carved
on your palms
a trail to lead the age through.
Rather
I shall counsel you:
Why do you limit yourself
within four walls of the house
gathering footmarks of memories
bequeathed on a river bank?
Why do you keep accounts
of the number of times the sun sets
in a man’s lifetime?
Instead, you walk with Nora,
a sister in your neighborhood;
enter the crowd of people
with a pair of free feet
Like a bird
touch an emancipated face
mixed in the air.
[*March 8: International Women’s Day]
Translated from Nepali by Mahesh Paudyal
Umesh Akinchan (b. 1976) is a poet. He began his literary career in 1992 and continued through his modern poetry. Ek Sagar, Dui Tara and Monalisa Ra March 8 are his anthologies of songs and poems respectively of poetry. He won the first prize in worldwide Nepali poetry competition in 2010, held in the. H