by Keshab Sigdel
She is busy colouring her thoughts
The fingers restlessly
Move across the drawings
On the card board paper.
“What is the colour of the sun?” she fumbles–
Yellow, orange, or crimson red–
Who knows it? The colour of the sun?
She takes a colouring pencil, and before she fills in
The colour, she tries to sharpen the tip of the pencil;
The tip breaks again and again...
And it only sharpens her nerves.
Irritated, confused,
She raises her head, and slowly, turns it a little right,
And gives a puzzled look at me,
Perhaps, at my non-cooperation. Her eyes
Are enough to tell what she feels
About me; But I have never coloured
A sun, you know! I have never felt it closely
To know its colours. At times,
I have hated the irresistible heat, or
Its absence too. But colours?
Does the sun have a colour at all?
With my little daughter, the sun smiles, and how
Do I tell what colour is the smile?
It’s raining heavily outside, and inside
My conscience erodes to create a grim, bleak lake
That receives the reflection of the sun.
What colour is the sun in the lake?
The colour of my mind, probably.
Hurry up, paint your own sun, dear!
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ABOUT THE POET ~
Born on 11 July 1979 in Bardiya, Nepal, Mr. Keshab Sigdel is an MA, MPhil in English literature and has also studied law. Currently, he is the assistant professor of English at Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal. He also works as the General Secretary of the Literary Association of Nepal, an organization of University teachers, and also the Vice President of the Society of Nepali Writers in English. He also active as a human rights activist and had worked as the National Vice President of Amnesty International in Nepal. His first anthology of poems "Samaya Bighatan" (Time Under Dissolution) was published in 2007 and and his recent publication is "Six Strings" (a joint anthology of poems in English). He is also the editor of "Of Nepalese Clay", a literary magazine of the Society of Nepali Writers in English. His literary works are included in University curriculum and school level text books in Nepal. He can be reached at keshab.sigdel@gmail.com
Last updated June 01, 2013