~Sagar Rijal~
When I leave
I will remember the peas
you planted on the yard and
the lone orange tree,
its leaves deep green
in the winter sun,
still too young to bear fruit.
The evenings
we stay by the fire
sticks crackling when they burn,
as toads croak in unison from the fields,
yellow lights blinking on the mountains
across the yard. During the day
I see those distant houses shine again,
with sun’s glare on their tin roofs.
You tell stories of our family-
how grandfather sold
the sheep on his care to go
to a university in India,
how when I last came to visit
I would not leave my mother’s side.
And without remorse you lament,
that you are the only one of the four brothers
left to tend the family home now.
“You all left for the cities,”you say.
Sipping the warm tea at
Aamai’s teashop, you introduce me to
strangers, “My nephew, from Kathmandu City!”
straining to hide some strange pride.
They tell me stories about my dead father-
he knew the multiplication tables by heart, one says.
Another thinks I have gone totally toward my mother-
“I would not recognoze you, if I saw you in the street!” he beams.
Some played football on the dusty school grounds with my dad,
but nobody remembers if he ever scored a goal.
Anyway that was thirty years ago, they sigh-
a collective acceptance of time’s passage.
They look across to the mountains
as if to find memories carved on its face.
He was a silent type, they surmise.
He must have had many assists, they conclude.
In the evenings,
you tell me more stories and
I wish I could stay to see the pea pods grow,
to watch oranges hanging from those branches.
(Source : Suskera.com )
