Days in the Life

Either from stained clothes
I would scrub the dirt of superstition
as I stayed home or
I’d put to be pitched into the drain
full on the plate
the discards of pro and con
In that way scrubbing my own environs clean.
Either I’d play with saffron yellow
salt & sugar white, and vegetable green in the kitchen,
dipping my fingers to the art of that experiment
or with sweat-sharp needle
stitch fraying divides
so as just to . . .
strengthen the relationship.
To make our house beautiful,
with my hands my rhododendron palms
I’d scrub it clean every evening.
There, with a rainbow-bearing brush
I’d paint the limited sky of Mt Everest
above my own.
Everyday, I would be
busy somewhere—in the library,
somewhere—in the laboratory,
somewhere—with only unlined paper and pen,
somewhere—in the educational institution,
there, with the mission of adding bricks
layer by layer to that basic foundation.
In our room every evening
I’d switch on a light
drawn from the clear Himalayan streams,
electric light of unplanted crops
in the plains and terraces.

On such an evening,
like a swallow, though flying everywhere,
to my own small nest
I would return
drawn by thoughts of my fledglings.

Jindagika Dinharu

Jindagika Dinharu