GITA TRIPATHI (Nepal)

Gita Tripathi is a poet, lyricist, essayist and literary critic.She has a collection of poems, two fine collections of lyrics and a book of critical essays. Gita is a member of PEN Nepal. She is one of the finest Nepali poets active today

 

Swimmers in My Memory Pool

When swimmers dive
into my memory pool
crystal waves
rise in hundreds from the
blurred water.

deep in the vagrant waters
I fail to recognize
my own image.
but out of the piecemeal
surface, too
how could you come
intact, and whole?

Lisa
One fine day
Lisa had asked me, ‘who is
greater: daddy or mummy?’
before I read her face
I had said: ‘both are great.’
she had trusted me
for what I’d said, believing
that one day,
like a couple of pigeons,
they’d fly home to meet her.

‘life is the sun and shadow both’,
I taught her, later.

on a certain hot day
while waiting for a cool shade
Lisa suffocated in the desert
heat.
her father arrived home with a sun,
and no shade for her.
on a certain wintry day
while waiting for a warm sun,
she froze in the cold winds.
her mother came home with a shade
and no sun for her.

she’s never got a correct
answer since
and still gives