From my terrace, watching rice plants below

Sway in the spring breeze—

Morning sun slants, spreading out,

The wilderness rises up to me—

Tall upon the terrace,

Surrounded by slovenly lowlands.

On distant highways,

Vehicles, like tin shacks, drift by.

By huddled houses, I hear

A screech of hunger on a transistor radio.

I am of one mind

Like a broken tree

In the middle of fields of rice.

A black raven sits on a nearby tree,

Then whirls in the spring breeze,

Soars to the sky,

Settling on the back of my mind.

My eyes swim with vague terror—

I hear incoherent scraps of talk

And see brief movements of hands,

Like the nervous raven’s wings.

Atop the wrought iron railing I stand—

A vortex of thoughts sneers at me.

Like yesterday’s old, stinking clothes

I cast off my past, inhale the present air,

And make the fatal plunge into the pool of future.

Bibek Adhikari