Poetry

— Haris Adhikari

Life goes
through a tunnel

which we make
of a certain length

to help ourselves
or not.

(First appeared in Red Fez)

— Haris Adhikari

Ascending
the steps of Swayambhu
most mornings,
in curiosity,
I would go to school, looking back
at the towering statue
of the Buddha.

Wonder
I would, in great amazement—

‘Why is Buddha so tall (even
in his sitting posture!)…
and fat
and long-eared…
unbelievable
compared to
the young prince in the story I read about in school…’

Unable I am,
still after so many years,
to come up with the answer
that could satisfy my questioning child

when he says—

‘Why make bigger images
against a reality
that needs no embellishment
just
goodness of the heart…
and
against a reality
that is so hollow now…’

** **

As a fifth grader, I went to Ananda Kuti Vidya Peeth which lies a little below on the lap of the hill on top of which the famous Buddhist shrine Swayambhu is. Every school day I walked all the way from Chhetrapati, a downtown area in Kathmandu back then, to my school. It would take almost an hour for me to get there. And on the way uphill, there were (and still are) these amazing larger-than-life size Buddha’s statues which often caused me to question their size!

(First appeared in Cyclamens & Swords Publishing)

— Haris Adhikari

I don’t have a theory for it. It is just an analogy
of a huge lake with ample inlets and outlets.
This lake is a canvas for clouds that drift away
slowly, like the fallen leaves. It’s also when

an anonymous lady secretly leaves an infant

on a pavement and disappears from sight. I don’t
know who this lady is. She could be anyone.
And she is gone, leaving the infant…
wrapped warmly in some clothes…

and the crying baby is picked up by a kind couple…

This is easy and hard; two in one scheme.
I don’t have a theory for it. It is just an analogy
with the lake where the boy stares
at his still reflection

and gains tremendous strength…

perhaps,
it is the communion with the deep
translucence— beneath the floating leaves, perhaps
it is the stone he hurls into the lake
to distort its trancelike quality

as ripples lap… rumpled reflections.

_______________________

(First appeared in Cuckoo)

— Haris Adhikari

A dot—
just a dot
on a white sheet of paper

in the middle
it’s alone, so
you think it
needs some neighbors

and you
bring it some company
and then you feel

a strong urge to go
away from that
mundane game
and you go, and keep going

until you realize
how far you’ve come
and to what
revelation.

(First appeared in The Kathmandu Post)

— Haris Adhikari

Is the horizon an illusion?
Or the eyes faulty?

That arresting
height, that expansion that
cauldron shape,
that age-long
eluding circle still continues
to go with me—
wherever I go!

Even today it’s heavy upon me
as it always is.

Like my shadow,
like my dreams
deferred,
like an endless
jungle of snares
or victims trapped
and dangling…
… chaotic states
or the world I’m in and from—
bound by
boarders
after boarders, ruled by
cloud colors, smogs—fumes
in the face of
azure sky, strokes
upon strokes of life
and death, humanity
raped, humiliation upon
humiliation, blood
and smoke spiraling, thunder
and noise
dissolving
into nad*(nada)—here and yonder
dismal categories
of horizons
are what keep on
betraying me—once I—
whenever I step on to
the yet
unfurled thresholds
brought with great sacrifices
and tender hopes.

Even today, it’s heavy upon me
as it always is. 

A bird’s view—a free bird’s view—
is broader, perhaps.

______________
*Nad / Nada is the cosmic sound of OM

(First appeared in Prachya Review)

— Haris Adhikari

terribly sickens, with its fetid,
black water. Dead
bodies being cremated…
a little above,
man is all smoke
and nothing.
Flies hover
above the oily water in it.
Half burnt bones
peep from below
the slimy sewage.
Plastic and
empty bottles
float to show their
dented look.
Just below the Lord’s
abode,
garbage slide
slowly
into the river
that goes—
just like the slow traffic— stinking
all across the Valley… Oh!
This sacred river!
Like a boa, it scares
the elite
people away
but not the scavengers
digging… the decaying garbage
deep… for a day’s meal.

**

On the way
back home, I heard people
talk about how
many reports, by many people,
were made about it, and how
sadly
nothing concrete
came out of them!

Now this gap
is what I’m thinking
about.

What will happen
when webs and
webs of
gaps determine
the course of our
life… and posterity?

______________

*A word play on the Bagmati river (which runs through the Kathmandu Valley); bagh (tiger) and mati (inclination; notion; tendency) speak of the terror created through the river

— Haris Adhikari

When you enter the room, you see
a panicked dove
fluttering here and there.

Your presence is another cage for him
and you have two options.

If you’ve ever wished to be a bird yourself,
oh, my friend, this very moment is the time!

(First appeared in Buddhist Poetry Review)

— Haris Adhikari

O pilgrims! O pilgrims!
Would you care to listen to my plea?

I fled to this place from a hundred hills away
losing my family in the wildfire
that smoldered for years in the villages.
Who can see the wounds I have?
Who can put some balm on them?
O pilgrims! I’ve haunting images in my dreams,
and I fear my mind will blast!
I fear not people but me.

Seeking solace, I sleep on this footway
and wake up to fuel my fury
in the midst of nights
I drink fire
and try to quench my thirst.
Oh, I’m burning in the belly, in my heart—
Can you see the flames?

My plight!
Ah, what a plight!
Life is a street dog
that barks at me as I try to love it.

Please, oh please,
convey my questions to your Gods. Ask them,
ask them why
they turn their backs on me.

O pilgrims! Ask them
what vengeance they took
on my family, and why,
and now, what they require of this boy that I am.

Uprooted, I was left to see
my origins dry. Ah, Poor me! I was just nine.
Now I do not have my sky.
I do not have land beneath my feet.
I’m a stranger in my own country,
walking in this stabbing void
among the sharp debris of my roof
blown off with cruelty
by the giants of the Age.

I know not where to go—
O pilgrims! I know not how to live,
carrying this
painful vista
of dislocation.

Please, oh please,
tell them
to move this way
and see for themselves
how desperately
a boy is looking for
Gods . . . in this Valley of Gods*!

________________

*Kathmandu Valley is well-known for its innumerable temples and stupas and is often called The Valley of Gods.

(First appeared in Of Nepalese Clay)

— Haris Adhikari
 

1.

I’m the dirt
of nature,

decaying—
every moment

I live
in the company of maggots.

2. 

Sickness
that I am

bestowed with—
from the very birth

I live
in your breath.

3.

I’m the death of yours
into who I am.

I corrupt you
down to your soul.

And you enjoy
what I do.

**

From ‘Flowing with a River’ (2012)

— Haris Adhikari

I guess you wouldn’t be living.
There was no earthquake in her screams, she was nothing
but wounds all over – red, blue, brown, purple –
bleeding on the junction – a matter of extreme curiosity for kids around
peeping from below your hips, or running after your footsteps.
Perhaps her busted head was a football!
Perhaps your boots, canes and stones were not enough, so
she was yelling at you to drag and thrash her more!

If she were a witch, I guess you wouldn’t be living.
Either she would surely escape flying on her broomstick
or just vanish with a simple click of her fingers right in the beginning
or furiously hurl you into a dark cave where
she would avenge by forcing you to eat human feces
the way you forced her, or, she would hammer your hands and legs
and teach you a lesson by pulling out your teeth
with more force and fury than you used to display your bravado.

If she were a witch, I guess you wouldn’t be living
and your children wouldn’t die of dysentery or of fever. Possession
is what you did to her, not what she did or did not.
She – just a single finger, and you – an entire village,
what a mad swarm of bees stinging a life to almost death!
Neither she spoke scary words nor called a thunder down.
What’s black magic? Why would she only leave the marks of her teeth
on your thighs or arms when she could have the whole of you?

(First appeared in MadSwirl)