The morning light pours in,

through the chink in the roof,

a lace-like pattern on the veranda.

I watch my grandmother milk the white jersey cow.

The smell fills the cowshed.

Later, when the conch resonates,

I run across the paddy field.

I insist on running,

until she promises me a candy.

 

Twenty years later,

My grandmothers' body burns in a pyre,

along the bank of Bagmati river.

And then the burning continues,

of the known, and the unknown people.

A darkness starts within me,

Its heaviness stays,

even though my life moves on.

 

 

This afternoon,

as I walk along the creek, near my home,

follow the watercourse,

through the wood,

I think of my grandmother and

those countless people, who drifted away

with the smoke, leaving only

a handful of ash

and a heaviness behind.