Damp logs
The moon mediates upon my cup of tea;
up across the table, the café owner
explains to me the power
of his powerlessness, the heat of
scarcity, of hike in the prices, of
oil and gas— money
being always short of purchasability.
I listen, as the moon slips away
into the tossing clouds, thinking of logs
damp and oozing— in the fireplace
far away from home in Sikkim.
Life was not easy. In sheds in summer,
the hearth is a mine of smoke. Eyes burn.
Tears roll. You have to bake yourself
for a cup of tea. Raw, everything’s raw
in the forests. Improvisation
is the only thing they live with.
So much like in the cities. I don’t see
much difference— the only being the logs,
damp logs, we ourselves often become
and give out a lot of smoke.
The boundary on the paddy field
Birbahadur slashed from the other side.
Dilbahadur slashed from this side.
Again Birbahadur did so from that side
and so did Dilbahadur from this side.
And this is how
there remained no sufficient space
even for a foot
on the boundary of the paddy field.
Then Birbahadur brought
a land measurement official—
what he fed him— hemp or wine?
The official started talking nonsense!
And all the while
Birbahadur was threatening Dilbahadur
with a khukuri!
And this
Dilbahadur couldn’t digest a bit,
so he sued his neighbor. But he didn’t know
how thorny the way was
that he’d chosen. At last,
he had to flinch away
like a dog scared…
Cursing the whole system, he noted,
‘This… is the way we live!’
A note on the poem: Years back, two of my neighbors had a continual and thus irritating quarrel, blaming one another for their almost equal share in slashing the main boundary of their paddy field. Funny for a curiosity. And a challenge for a system. The way one of them tried to justify his retaliative reactions made me write this poem. I think it could possibly mirror the larger picture of our communities where we mostly tend to breach laws and then still expect justice, where we tend to oppress others in whatever way we can—to gain benefit, either small or big….and where we want to show ourselves as clean and others not! And seeking a way out through the process of laws is the last resort! What is further frustrating is the system that very often swirls our head.
Haris Adhikari is a Nepali poet writing in English. He edits Misty Mountain Review, an online journal of short poetry. He has recently brought out his first poetic anthology Flowing with a River from The Society of Nepali Writers in English (NWEN). His poems have appeared in Red Fez Journal, Buddhist Poetry Review, Cyclamens and Swords Publishing, Mad Swirl, Red Box Kite, Yes Poetry, Of Nepalese Clay, The Applicant, The Enchanting Verses Literary Review, Essence Poetry and Locust Magazine, among others. His other works are forthcoming in The Citron Review and Message in a Bottle Poetry Magazine.
