[33] Mother is the Deepest Color of Life, Gita Karki

As the sun starts to set
The colors of my life
Begin to fade
At that moment
From the lap of the dusk
the colors of Faguwa shower—
That deep color is my mother

When flowers
Look at me with drooping eyes
When my body is detached from itself
And estrangement tries to enter me
At that moment, my mother
Blooms like a rainy rose and fills with spring
Yes, that flowering rose and the bloom of spring
Is my mother

Just as the day awakens from sleep
And drinks the tears shed by the night
Just like the silent dew, sometimes
I want to weep
Alone, I want to disappear
Like a star

At that moment, awakening from the horizon,
The sun stops me with its hands
And drinks in the tears shed in silence
The sun that heralds the morning warmth
Is my mother

In the meandering journey of life
I meet a terrifyingly dense forest in front
Someone is stalking me from behind
I lose my way, I become an airplane inside the fog
At that moment, my mother widens her path
And becomes the serene sky, cleared of fog
She holds me to her bosom like the sun.
That blue sky is my mother.

When the sky demands a rainbow
I see my mother all over the rainbow
When the Earth seeks the sun
I see my mother all over the sun
My mother is a rainbow
My mother is the sun
My mother is the sky, brilliant and bright
My mother is the deep color of life.

Translated from Nepali by Richa Bhattarai
Reprinted from Snow Jewel 2015, Volume 6