Shyam Rimal
The country is flowing as a stream of sweats
Of tears and blood
Dissolving the entire human existence within it
Crying unabated
Every single day
Flowing in the stream are the wounds and blood of raped women
Faces of girls splashed with acid
The sweats and pains of the sugarcane farmers
Tears of the victims of loan sharks and cooperatives cheaters
Woes of the parents of Bipin Joshi abducted in West Asia
And the hopes of the families of youths fighting in the Ukrainian war
Not stream but the whole war and terror is flowing
Seems like flowing in the stream are
The displaced families of the workers in the Gulf and Korea
The landless squatters and distressed people
Living in the nooks and corners of the mountains
The houses and huts, land and grains
All flowing in the stream
And, there is a crowd to see the flow and the flood
Of people wearing daura-suruwal, and police and military uniform
From the parliament, the executive and the parties
But alas,
The state does never ever see flowing with the stream
The country’s soil, soul and existence
The country is flowing as a stream of sweats
Of tears and blood
Dissolving the entire human existence within it
Crying unabated
Every single day
Translated from Nepali by Tirtha Bhattarai
