Worms -raja puniani From my head to sole under Stirs incessantly A worm, The weird worm. Like a comrade at one time And a foe the very next moment This worm is within me, But strangely I keep on wearing an act As if there isn’t anything inside. I am What I am, I say- But I am also many more And many different others besides being what I am – Who will seek? Who will write? – It makes me anxious And then I smoke a cigarette Or drink tea Or remain wearily uninterested, It is when the consumerist clatters of commercials Translate my anxiety into the suffocating constraint. Archaeologist Dr. Thapa stretched back The history of Kalimpong up to above four thousand years, Reaching up to that starting point of Time The worm within me Sings a song of cultivation Recites a poem of nature Displays tricks of magic And runs up to where I am And standing upright against the ground of Time in which I live Suggests me to forget history again. A quake rocks the whole indeed Whenever this worm states so vehemently- Your house is a house of cards! The wall of civilization which strives to remain new forever Which we built with so much pride Turns old as Time passes by with every moment- – Walking in line with the wall like a procession Where are the primitive worms heading to? – Like the universe expanding like a balloon This walking has no definite end And so these worms have No definite name, identity or nature. Seeing all tattered body of culture Scab-infected The worm inside me stirs even more. Says, he feels to puke hard. Says, he’s getting too giddy. At this hour I am scared of my own shadow More than anyone else – While in the dark phase of Time It is this shadow That deserts first of all. We, toiling to metamorphose Into undefined something from worms, were worms Even after walking through passages and tracks Of so many centuries We are still worms. The weird worm within me Never tells His history openly, Has never told at all. But I look at it and write down its history, Keep writing in a language it never understands – Even this poem is a text of that history-writing Reading or listening to which Or without reading or without listening to which You are imbibing the history of worms. (Originally written in Nepali. English Translation- Bhupendra Subba, Darjeeling.)
Posted on: Fri, 23 Aug 2013 18:08:40 +0000
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