One Poem by Bhuwan Thapaliya

 

New Airport

A prayer flag flutters

over a pregnant woman

as she raises her folded hand

to her forehead in her evening prayers.

Nearby, a shaman gets ready to dance.

Leaning against the trunk

of an ancient pipal tree

near our village house,

my father was reading the newspaper

and occasionally watching the birds

flying back to their nests

in the woods with a smile.

Suddenly, his hands

began to shake bizarrely,

and he was marinated in sweat.

I rushed toward him and asked,

‘What’s wrong with you father?’

He said nothing,

but through his sunken eyes,

he gestured for me to read the paper.

Tears were rolling down

my cheeks

after I read about

the government’s plan

to chop the trees

and bulldoze the woods

to build another airport

right atop our soul.

We sat in silence

until the last bird left the sky.

Somewhere nearby,

a dog began to bark

and then stopped.

 

 

Bhuwan Thapaliya is a poet writing in English from Kathmandu, Nepal. He works as an economist and is the author of four poetry collections. His poems have been published in Pendemics Literary Journal, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Trouvaille Review,  Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic Initiative(Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University), International Human Rights Art Festival, Poetry and Covid: A Project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, University of Plymouth, and Nottingham Trent University, Pandemic Magazine, The Poet,  Valient Scribe, Strong Verse, Jerry Jazz Musician,  VOICES( Education Project), Longfellow Literary Project, Poets Against the War among many others.