Bhuwan Thapaliya
It’s 8 o’clock
in the morning.
There is no sign
of sun in the sky.
Sunflowers
are still sleeping.
She sat down
on a fallen tree
near the
murmuring brook,
lowered her head
and closed her eyes.
Maybe it’s the weather.
Maybe she’s mourning
the death of her lover
who was brutally killed
by the invaders
a week ago.
Maybe it’s the dissuasion
on the faces of the once hopeful.
Maybe she is fed up
with shootouts in the streets
and bursts
of violent social instabilities.
Maybe it’s simply a hangover
from the last night’s destructive air raids.
Or maybe she’s trying to fall asleep,
desperate to save herself
from her
recurring agonies.
No one knows the truth.
Only the flowers know.
A limping cockroach
swirled past her thighs.
The winds blowing the other way now,
but it could change at any time.
[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 Wordcity Literary Journal, Pratik, Pandemics Literary Journal, Poetry Life and Times, 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, Valiant Scribe, Strong Verse, Jerry Jazz Musician, VOICES (Education Project), Longfellow Literary Project, Poets Against the War among many others.]
