Poetry:
Haribhakta Katuwal
Wish
Daddy, I wish not to go to school;
histories of dead days, like
rusted machine-parts, are taught there;
those mathematical formulae have also gone too old,
I have no wish to live, on
mere pages of history.
I must live on days to come, by beating
the pace of history, by
being something more than history;
that is the reason, daddy; and for that
I do not go to school,
histories of dead days are taught there.
I prefer an ideality that could be realized, more than
an ideology that is kept in frame,
I enjoy walking building new trails, than to
walk on entrenched roads.
My muscles need a spade, but not
those big volumes of history books;
not with scheme, but with my feet
I have to measure peaks; and
I have to pay back the entire debt that
this soil has indebted to me.
Daddy, I do not go to school
histories of dead days are taught there.
Translated from Nepali by Suman Pokhrel
