KESHAB SIGDEL (Nepal)
The sun rays
entered into the room
through small punctures in the wall
and flooded over my mother’s shawl
that spread over my body
The smoke from the clay oven
raised and tossed the walls of the chimney,
and returned to the room, making it hazy,
forming a smoke cloud seeking its way out
through ventilations
The milk kettle whistled, and
the foam oozed out of the lid;
A white stream ran down the kitchen slab
trickling on the floor drop by drop
Whining Malaika, my puppy, wasn’t sure
why I didn’t join her for the morning game
She moved out of the room
with an apprehensive gaze through her half-closed eyes
She had probably sniffed that something wasn’t right
They did it all early this morning
I could not wait to say to her–
I’m sorry
I was dead
but not annihilated
Now is the hour of Al-Qiyamah,
the rising of the Dead!
2. Happiness
I was looking at the mountain
And tracking the trail to climb its top
To jump off the mountain
And commit suicide.
The mountain too saw me
But unaware of my intentions
Unexpectedly, the mountain said:
I am tired of the sublimity of my height
Please conquer me, and unburden me from my anguish.
Then I feared the isolation, the exilic existence of the mountain
And walked away from it.
I went to the sea
And explored the spot
From which I could jump in it
And get drowned.
The sea too saw me
Unaware of my intentions
The sea said:
I am tired of the vastness of my own stretch
Plunge me and get me free from this suffering.
I feared the unfathomable depth, the agonized existence of the sea
And walked away from it.
I went to the storm
And waited for the moment
To hurl myself in the whirlpool of its wild dance
And annihilate myself.
The storm too saw me
Unaware of my intentions
The storm said:
I feared the unpredictable aggression, a howling existence of the storm
And walked away from it
Then I went to the fire
To the rock
To the wilderness
They all had their own agonies.
Then I stopped to look at myself—
And the soul finally smiled.
Bio
Keshab Sigdel (1979) is a Nepali poet, editor, academic and rights activist. Besides poetry, he also writes fiction, literary essays and plays. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Poetry Planetariat, a global poetry magazine published by World Poetry Movement. He is the recipient of the Bhanubhakta Gold Medal (Culture Ministry of Nepal, 2014), Rock Pebbles Literature Award (India, 2018) and many such.
