Hunger is my home

and poverty the name

of a village written

on my heart.

Hunger is my home

and I dwell on crags

of misery. Darkness

hides my hollow cheeks.

In the cold recesses

of my wasted belly

a child’s form stirs

and growing, the form gnaws

at my impotence.

The child’s name is despair

and I cannot raise it.

I cannot nurture hope

when our tomorrow

is a movable feast

called hunger. It is best

to bathe in its shadow

and let this despair grow.

Hunger is my home

and poverty the name

of a village written

on my heart.

The Vicious Cycle

by Manjul

On the cycle, we were three,

my son, hunger, and then me.

More than my son I wished

to please hunger, hunger first.

My beloved son,

dearer than myself

This hunger that I shared

with my precious child

raced away on the cycle

with us; and I feared

we would not arrive safely

at the end of the road.

He was blue in the face

I thought, but he wasn’t.

Dark shadows cloaked his form

I thought, but they didn’t.

Hunger excites madness and grief.

Wind, woods, earth and water,

it makes all of them weep.

Hunger in the breath, breathing.

Hiding inside the heart, beating.

Crouched to spring, like a mean cat.

Angry, hissing,

clawing until blood flows.

Blood that satisfies

Pain,

dearer than my child:

sleeping now, numb.

The hairs on this beast’s back,

hunger the beast,

are like those of a contented cat.

I have stroked them and know!

The Straw Mat Will Never Dry

by Toya Gurung

Yesterday, my old aunt

could find nothing to eat.

Wishing to make it so

will not make potatoes grow

on my uncle’s bald head.

And so, she climbed the hill

to market with beans in a pot.

A telegram from their son in Malaya

said that he had no holiday.

“Mum, Dad, don’t worry, nor Nakali.”

In Tindhare, the afternoon sun

glistened on the brook; the porter

remained for the night, too weary.

Nakali eloped with a soldier from there.

Remembering, old eyes with tears burn

over the cornmeal and turnip stew

that my old aunt labours to earn

on others’ land, watering her own

in the morning. Yet, on her return

she discovers each time that her

neighbour has diverted the drain.

Her laments find no compassion

among the naked hills at sundown.

My old aunt whom Nakali left alone.

Now the manger has fallen down,

the terraces are eroding, and

my uncle keeps on smoking

his hookah!

Perhaps tomorrow the sun will not shine

on the meadow, and the winds howl in Jhadkala

when she reaches there for shelter.

Why should the colours of the sun

visit this hill forlorn? It overlooked it

on its way to the far horizon

and the cock crowed during the night.

In the night it rained.

Dung and leaves were swept

away. The harvest of corn

will be poor this year.

Plenty has gone away

into the far valleys.

My aunt will not admit

that times are hard.

The corn has dried

and the chilli withered.

Each day a little death

overlooks it with stealth,

as if it were wished upon

the blight to blast the green.

In the moist air of a humid porch

the heavy grinder wearies her.

She hardly sees, she can hardly hear.

Has the wind blown off the roof? Unclear

which side it is in the eye of the storm,

these fragile two in a silent room.

Older than them, too, the sun

is feeble and looks down upon

hills swept by landslides, dark and brown

amidst the cold, pervasive gloom.

The straw mat will never dry!