-Bhupi Sherchan

Bhupi Serchan

All-day long,

like a dry bamboo

snoozing
and
regretting,

at own hollowness

all-day long
like a sick pigeon
pecking at the breast
scratching the wounds

all-day long,
in solitude like the pines

sobbing,

owing to some latent agony

all-day long
like an oyster mushroom;
far from the enormity of
the earth and the sky,
stabbing the feet into
a small piece of land
covering self with a
small umbrella…

Himal Khadka

in the evening,
when Nepal shrinks into Kathmandu
and Kathmandu dwarfs into Newroad*

and when Newroad
crumples and crumbles

under countless Feet
and becomes newspapers, tea stalls, pan stands

different hoaxes; In different attires,
walk back and forth

cackling like hens that just laid eggs, march the newspapers

and in places
darkness; scared of the lights of the vehicles, ascends the pavement

and frightened by
the humming and the stingings of
Innumerable bees,

I wake up

like the ghosts at the judgment day
and in absence of Lethe* the river in oblivion,
jump into a tharra* glass
and forget my own past story, past life and death

like this
the sun always rises from a tea kettle
and sets in an empty tharra* glass
the earth I dwell on is revolving
as before

and it’s just only me
a stranger to the changes
in the surroundings,

to the scenes,

to the merriment,

like a blind man compelled
to sit on a revolving chair,
showcased in an exhibition.

Translation -Himal Khadka

*Newroad – Kathmandu downtown

**tharra – the cheap country liquor