My Grandmother's Kitchen

There’s no electricity
a darkroom like historic
my grandmother’s kitchen.
Now, Mesa Verde reminds me of it.
In the middle of the floor
was a wood fireplace--cooking stove
built by three stones’ combination.

A belief says that our
ancestors’ dead spirits live in fireplaces,
where the priest prays, worships
and bestows the gifts to make happy to them.
My grandmother’s kitchen is story
and glory of mine. It tells me history of mine.

Sacred fireplace is conducted by the divine power,
which was included in my grandmother’s kitchen.
My grandmother could keep it pure,
and she made it respectful all of her life.

Fireplace--Daabye, it was fearful for me.
My infant time passed staying far from it.
It was prohibited for me to be familiar with it;
if I unnecessarily teased with fireplace, my activity
would not be tolerable for the god--Saamkha.
He could become angry, and he would punish me.

All around my grandmother’s kitchen
was full with rakes and baskets those were filled
with various food and kitchen tools.
There’re iron, steel, brass, rubber, wood, stone
and clay’s instruments; they’re few modern—
pots, pans, clefts, spoons and tongs,
but they’re seemed unique and antique.

The wall was painted by clay’s red and white colors.
The ceiling and wood mainstays were tinted by black smoke.
My grandmother’s kitchen was natural and original.
I could get my real origin and identity in my grandmother’s kitchen.

It’s a marvelous panorama that is painted in my sightedness.
My grandmother’s wrinkled face, fresh ash like white hair
shone in the flames of fire. Her sweat fell like a waterfall.
My grandmother’s robust arms, faster hands,
expert fingers showed the magic in cooking.

She shared her love and affection with majestic feasts.
My grandmother’s liberal heart
made that kitchen as a common dinning room
for the alien and known. She received
many people’s appreciations for her kindness,
they still sing the song of her greatness.

She’s gone.
She left so many recollections in my mind.
No longer she will not possess it.
The era is changing so fast.
If my grandmother’s kitchen is not destroyed,
a hundred years later it becomes
a museum as a heritage of my village.


* Daabye: n. The word Daabye calls in Kirat Rai Bantawa language—fireplace or cooking stove.
* Saamkha: n. Saamkha is a type of God who spiritually rules in fireplace.
* Fireplace is a very powerful and sensitive place according to the Kirat religion.

Letter to My Mother (Letter Poem)

Dear mother:
You used to say
do not forget your homeland.
It is everything to you.
Mother, I will never forget
your voice or what you have said.
I am sharing
my American experience with you
as I am a part of two worlds.

It is tough to face.
I am familiar to the two cultures.
Eastern breath, western air;
eastern feet, western shoes;
eastern soul, western culture;
eastern blood, western water;
eastern motion, western walking;
eastern tune, western song.

Dear mother,
Your voice echoes in my ears.
I will not forget my homeland.
I never forget your voice.

My Brain

It is covered and shielded by the skull.
My brain is my shame.
At every step, it gives me trouble.
It restricts me from being brilliant.
Why does it rule me by making nonsense?

It weaves unnecessary things.
It compels me to spend the night with insomnia.
My brain accepts useless ideas.

My brain suffers from the “book phobia”.
When my eyes glance on a page,
it vibrates, heels and stews with hot blood without criteria.

My brain burns itself as the flame of fire,
and when it fails to succeed the purpose of life.
It is an unsounded type of a bomb;
it blasts in a wrath inside of a skull.

I want to take it out, and replace it
with a new brain, instead of staying
with this archaic brain.
Of course, I can direct it,
it will change me from insane to brilliant.

My brain will tolerate a crowd,
so I can join the disco dance.
It can make me able to stay in my solitude,
so I can enjoy the music and poetry.

My brain will be my pride.
It is covered and shielded by the skull.

A Painful Experience

The sun vanished in the dim cloud. The surface was wet
with rain, and the weather wept unpleasantly. The wind didn’t flow,
leaves didn’t move, the birds didn’t sing, and the bamboos
didn’t dance. My eyes filled with tears, and my heart burnt with
the flame of pain. It was the most sorrowful moment of my life.

A black night of summer, my grandmother entered
into the door of heaven. Hundreds of mourners came
to the cremation of my grandmother in the morning.
I sank in an ocean of grief, and the mountains of sorrow crushed
over me. My grandmother’s body was kept in a casket covered by flowers.
When the mourners picked up my grandmother’s casket,
I heard the sound of loss and despair.

My grandmother’s body we took to an evergreen,
peaceful, and pure place. The mourners dug a ditch.
When they placed inside the casket of my grandmother,
I called hundreds of times to my grandmother. She did not hear,
and her closed eyes never opened from deep sleep.
My merciful voice spread in the wind, and went far.
I just could pray for peace for my grandmother’s dead soul.

The mourners began to bury the casket of my grandmother
with clay and stones. A minute later, my grandmother’s casket
disappeared under the clay and stones. It made a great grief in my life.
I lost my grandmother forever. I missed all my happiness
I had with my grandmother by her death. Still, she comes in my dream.
When I wake up, she already escapes.
I burn and fall. It adds new hurt in my heart.

Manzari

She shows fabricated smile as a faded flower.
Sober pain of a deep hurt spreads on her face.
She cannot remove her sadness like a torn cloth,
it cannot cover her shyness.

She feels by herself; she is a scene of shame.
She loses her aesthetic persona in eyesight.
She aspires to make her gorgeous
life with a refreshing happiness.
She starts to append a garland of hope.
Searching for her fanciful and lost dream,
Manzari begins an indefinite journey.

Her reality portrays:
Poverty makes a slave like life,
illiteracy isolates from global age’s affairs,
ignorance trades in cheaper price,
innocent mind gets involved in juncture of conspiracy,
her journey is necessary to reform her entity.

Manzari passes over the horizons to ocean,
she’s unknown, shifted as an animal.

Her karma places:
She cannot defend her delicate and sensitive virginity.
Without feelings and excitement, she is ravished
in a brothel of Bombay by lustful men.
Missing hopes and relations,
she cannot protect her chastity.
She curses to her destiny for such a life.
She cannot escape from her master’s cage.
Her charm is squeezed like flour dough.

This is a life of hell.
Manzari dies mysteriously in an Arabian country
reason that she cannot endure agony
of losing her virtue of life. Manzari’s appending
garland of hope is incomplete.

Many of us,
we hear the story of Manzari.
But we don’t care.
She is the page of an open book.
We can read and feel her.
We can share our fondness to her.

Manzari wants to live as us,
with value and pride of life.
Try to feel her torment,
try to listen her sob.

Stop women trafficking!
Do not elevate to the world’s human trading.
It’s your criminal and outrageous act.
It’s a defamation of our society and nation.

Read, feel, think and understand
Manzari’s story belongs to us.

Life is a Play of Fate

Life is a golden opportunity. It provides us the chance to experiment in the mysterious universe that exists as a creature’s activity. Birth and death are a rule of nature. They are the facts of evolution and creation. Do we govern by ourselves, or does another? We do not have an absolute answer. Life is a play of fate – beginning to ending of life; we endeavor to have worth by sage, potency and wealth. Being materialistic can be the reason of grief; our immense impulses and desires interrupt intrinsic immunities as they reach to the abyss of the ocean and to fondling the tallness of the sky. We make a place of success and failure; we wail in loss and titter in triumph. We are directed by the fate that occupies our lives. We just act.

Poet's Statue

Among the crossroad stands a statue
of half body – big eyes, long nose,
black short mustache and hair, black hat,
strong chest, implied smile—closed mouth.
He has tucked a book under his arm.
It’s a poet’s statue.

The sun of autumn heats.
Dust swirls on his face.
Summer rain washes away them.
In the winter season, the trees’ brown leaves
fall, scatter and cover the area of the statue.

It is a playground of a white dog,
the dog makes it unfriendly by smell of stool and urine.

The poet’s statue becomes a controversy.
It is that it is found in the wrong place.
Natives say it’s a symbol
of an unitary ruling system of the nation.
It is unfair, it lifts injustice
not equality between different languages, races and religion.

The statue is enameled to disrespect him.
It is hammered to collapse.
Human behavior returns to primitive age.
We have already experienced Mao’s Cultural Revolution 1966-1976.
A poet’s statue cannot be the subject the spill of anger.
A poet should not be a representative of a particular sect.

The silent voice of the poet’s statue
requests in peaceful appearance
to listen to his message to all of the people
Poet’s statue doesn’t absolutely represent only his origin.
He did not create his creation as defeat for other identities.
He presents a feature of nation
A poet is characteristic of the people,
where they unify by the peace of harmony.

Do not misinterpret or define;
it doesn’t denigrate the quintessence of others.

Poet’s statue is a heritage.
It must be protected.
A poet should not be communal.
The poet’s statue doesn’t absolutely represent only his origin.
He did not create his creation as defeat for other identities.