To My Son Flowing Downstream

Biwash Pokharel

With this heart forced-frozen like a stone,
I, your mother, am letting you flow
In water
My joy, my soul, my dream
You go down, flowing
Stop wherever you find a piece of land
And enter Samadhi therein

All your life
Though you played with soil
And grew on it
We never had land we could call ours
Where I could give you a decent burial
The lawn in the unnamed land
Where you sprinted all naked
Belonged to the state
The field, where your father ploughed in summer
And gathered left-over rice bunches in winter
Belonged to the landlord
The only soil we owned was the one
That came clinging as specs to our bodies
Together with the sweat of labor

Today, washing off those specs of soil
In rain of tears surging like flood
And placing this heart on a chop-board
I am seeing you off;
Go down, down with joy
Stop wherever you find a piece of land
And enter Samadhi therein

Memories of moments before and after your birth
Surge like untamable waves
Nepal had a shut-down the day you were born
Closed were the doors of hospitals
And the doctors were on strike
Your father
Workless for a week
And unable to restore a neonate back to normalcy
Sat in gloom on a field-ridge beside our home
And cried aloud, letting his heart out
Praying to a stone—mistaken for God—
To ensure your safe arrival
And my good health
You were ushered into a shed called ‘home’
Where both rain and the sun burnt and soaked;
I had recuperated
Eating left-over food from the lord’s
Who owned the land, where our hut stood
On the day you were born, just for a single day
I had warmed by stiffened self at a corner
Burning faggots and straw shreds
And had smeared boiled water
In lieu of oil
To massage myself and set my tired body right

Even as I taught you
To dive deep into the river of life
And to float back from it
I got all my colorful dreams drowned
Leaving myself shocked and forlorn
And stood stunned with all my joys forsaken

Why you came onto this land
Was to harvest nothing but hardship
You went away, reaping miseries!

Go, go floating like paper-boats
You played with in water once;
Do not get drowned anywhere
Flow, flow without a stop
Steadily, like the invisibly flowing wind and like time
To wrap you in, I have nothing with me
Save this tattered sari
Whose color doesn’t match the flag of any party
Doesn’t match the hue of our sweat, tears and life
Is nothing like the much-honked equality, reservation and freedom
Tearing a part of the same sari to wrap you in
And driving entire love out of this heart
I am letting you flow in this turbid water

O my joy, my soul, my dream!
Go, go down flowing
Stop wherever you find a piece of land
And enter Samadhi therein

Translated by Mahesh Paudyal

[Biwash Pokharel (b. 1958) is a noted storywriter, poet and essayist. His published works include Anido Raat ra Battika Putaliharu, Samayabimba, Sneha, Karkalako Chhata, Sandeko Dain, and Nisiddha Bastima. He also edited magazines like Paluwa, Naagbeli, Moti, Taranga and Navakriti. He lives with his family in Biratnagar, Nepal. ]