by Keshab Sigdel
At the courtyard
blossomed are the flowers—
in pink, red, and yellows.
The woman wakes up,
and each morning,
stretches her eyes till the road ends of her sight
in the hope that her husband
who disappeared some ten years ago
might return.
She waited till she could;
but her husband never returned.
The last drop in her eyes rolled
and fell
unaccounted,
futile.
There was only one more thing she could do—
recollect the memories of the days bygone!
She remembered her husband
And gazed at the flowers he planted
before he left his house in enforcement.
And, in the blooming flowers at the courtyard
She found the vigour for a continued wait.
Sometimes she would fear
when the flowers fell in their prime
by the struck of their wind;
But the new buds that appeared
in all their beauty and fragrance
reinforced in her the verve
to renew her wait.
After a long cohabitation
suddenly today
she felt a chilling discomfort with the flowers.
In them, she saw the shadow of malice;
And when the flowers swayed along the tune
of the gentle eastern breeze,
she feared it a death-dance.
An epitome of nilakantha,
flowers gulped the incrimination
and honoured the silence.
Without the knowledge of the woman
flowers continued to offer homage
to the dead body of the woman’s husband
buried at the courtyard
of his own house.
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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 January 30, 2013