Baskota Dhananjaya
(for the nameless mason)
Crowds.
Crowds upon crowds.
Fingers—
Pointed at him,
Brother… who are you?
He does not answer.
No—
He is the answer.
A monument of silence.
Or perhaps
Silence wearing the shape of a man.
He stands—
On the soil that no longer calls him son.
The homeland gone,
But his feet remain,
Rooted in the ashes.
He has seen the marches
Every day.
Feet— blistered, burned—
From the fire of tyres.
He has stood—
A soldier without a gun.
Breathing in the tear gas
Until the breath
Became a wound.
And still—
Alive.
Once… he spoke.
Find my name in the books, he said.
Then—
The silence prevailed.
He—
Who shattered a gun with a stone.
Who blocked an arrow with steel.
Who once wore a garland
In a photograph,
And smiled,
Only to see
That photograph burn—
His face curling away
In the flames of gunpowder.
And now—
You ask him again,
Who are you?
He is the abandoned statue.
The hammer falls on his head—
And he cannot cry out.
He is the mason.
The builder of my house.
Hands swollen.
Palm lines erased.
Forehead branded with shame.
Arms tattooed with misfortune.
Now— wordless.
Even as stone,
The hammer strikes.
Again.
Again.
And he watches—
The flower-thieves.
Plucking blooms,
Not for his neck,
But in their own.
(Baskota Dhananjaya is poet, fiction writer and critic from Damak Jhapa. He teaches English language and literature at Damak multiple Campus, Jhapa.)
