Som Nath Ghimire
O cunning and restless Sun!
Am I only a gravedigger?
You were the first to see me
Whilst I was flung into the flood of mid-day
And swept away into the grave land
Ashore to the mute graves
In the soil of mockery
Beneath the foothills your fate
By the painful rivers of purgatory
And the wilderness of your cruel sunbeams
I was trained to be a gravedigger
Thousand years …
I have been a witness to dreary deserts of dream deaths
Seasons and seasons passed by
Years and years passed by
And I dug the graves dawn to dusk-light
And buried the deadliest sins of human destiny
And the most brutal cruelty of your crimes
Alas, you know not how spirits revolt each midnight
You know not the sufferers
And the protest songs
Of sick unpurified dream souls
Locked in shameless dungeons of your humanity
You know not how I carry them on my shoulder each midnight
Like the ancient Sisyphus
To the mountains of foolery
The halfway
The onlookers of obscene cruelty
The old and the young—oh the oldest and the youngest mountains crumbled!
Knowing neither beginning nor journey’s end
I piled up and buried the perishing rebels of your scorching sunbeams!
In the mute graves
Alas! Now the graves are all full
I know not where to bury the deadliest sins of your disguised humanity
I know not where to drag these spirits!
O children of tomorrow’s nights!
Where will you bury the dreams when the gravedigger sighs?
Where will you carry the protest songs, when in the graves, the gravedigger dies?
O cunning and restless Sun!
Am I only a gravedigger?
Hearken!
I cannot but only free the painful protest songs!
The darkest hour amidst your sunbeams thereof ends!
[Ghimire has earned MA in English from Central Department of English, Kirtipur and is currently MPhil Scholar at Nepal Open University]
A Gravedigger’s Song
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