Three Fine Poems by Raj Kumar Baral

 

The Dream Mansion

Beloved,
Had your earth you walk in been different
and your dreams different from others’
perhaps I wouldn’t be able to say
who would be soaked
and who irrigated
by the pitchers of feelings
filled to the brim at the equator of beliefs.
Beloved,
Had the story of love you tell been different
and the trail you keep been a different one
perhaps
I wouldn’t be a listener to the palam* you sing;
and you wouldn’t be the one to watch me perform balan**

Yet, my love
it’s possible that snapped strings of the mind
would not come together again simply because
we live on the same earth
dream alike
walk along the same trail
and perform palam* and balan** together

You can, at such a moment, surmise
the life you lived
doesn’t seem yours;
and life I read
doesn’t seem mine.
Reckon, my love
dreams have their own legacy;
they have their own mansion
far grander than the memories of your reality.

*a cultural dance of Limbu people who are mostly living in eastern Nepal

** a cultural dance especially performed by the Chhetris and Brahmins of Nepal 

 

Time Tree

Tree is Time*

Time is Tree

The solitary witness.

Standing atop the hill

Beholding the horizon

The sportive tree

Blessed with

Squirrels, birds, spiders and ants

 

Weeps 

When it sees

A shadow

Climbing uphill. 

*A character who narrates the story in Mahabharata, a holy book of Hindu people

Who Are You?

Pointing at me your index finger

from a distant horizon

who are you

to ask the arithmetic of my coastal life?

 

Ere collecting the dispersed dreams

devastated at early twilight,

who are you

to ask the accounts of my dusky life?

 

Without measuring 

the perimeter of your own cursive life

who are you

to ask the weight of my feelings?

 

Dear you!

Let the river flow

Let the sun rise and set.

Raj Kumar Baral, an M. Phil. in English Literature, is a poet, critic and translator. He began his literary career from his school days and continuously writing poems, doing translations and publishing critical opinions on language and literature in different newspapers and journals. He is an Assistant Professor at Tribhuvan University, Nepal and currently, he is pursuing his PhD from University of Texas at El Paso, USA.