By Umesh Bajagain
COVID
The virus came
with a blow
smacked me in the face
blew me out slow
for sometime
and left.
But the world
blew out loud
with a thud
and remained.
Die In, Die Out
.
The streets are empty
from the virus
and the souls are home
.
I sit by a window
below a thatched top
and see the storm
.
I tune in the radio
tells me to rest inside
away from the doom.
I tune in the TV
tells me to run outside
away from home.
I’m the Parrot and We’re the Parrots
.
I saw the weed and the paddy.
.
They stacked their feet and toes
hand in hand in their home-land
inundated in water.
.
It’s August and they’re happy—
they shared their share they suck from soil,
peace in harmony but aggravated by agony.
.
Are these both daughters of nature?
.
I asked in muse because it’s October.
October—when anthropomorphic humans rise
from the bed of utilitarianism.
.
Saw them break the neck of the weed
and water the paddy.
Weed is no need and paddy is daddy,
they said.
.
“From their roots or they will be back,”
said the man,
uprooted the weeds,
and expected the grains to grow.
.
I’m the parrot and the nightingales are singing
“the blissful assonance of humans and demons”
.
Then I saw a philosopher
ankle-deep amongst the sisters
philosophizing friend-foe dichotomy.
.
Followed him the earth doctor;
“Weed’s no need and grains our friends,”
who said so.
.
Who would know things deep
in the anguish of orphan sisters?
But then there are humans,
more prominent.
They part them,
break the bones of the bond
and make them irrelevant.
.
I’m the parrot and the nightingales are singing
“the blissful assonance of humans and demons.”
.
What destiny keeps them there?
A one meant to last a flash?
Day selects weed homeless
and night strips the grains
Twice they raised them together
only to part them later?
.
I’m the parrot and the nightingales are singing
“the blissful assonance of humans and demons.”
.
White, green, and brown balls,
they’re fed profuse.
Are they this frail
to nourish them to nausea?
Like a slaughtering animal
nursed to its brim,
they slaughter the weed young
partly by poison,
and parting them in season.
.
I’m a parrot and the nightingales are singing
“the blissful assonance of humans and demons”
.
Where do these weeds come from
where they plant only the grains?
Were they there all along
waiting for their sister to show up?
And how all along is all along?
.
It’s but humans
who treasure precedence and succession,
value estrangement,
who mend the rules of nature.
.
I’m a lone dead parrot.
We are lone dead parrots.
And the nightingales are gone.
.
Umesh Bajagain has been a Science and English Educator for twelve years. Also an editor by profession, he likes to call himself a short story writer by-choice and poet by-chance. Humour, Satire and Dark are his areas of interest. He is also a budding translator and a ghost author for various publications. His works have been published in local English dailies and had been waiting for the Big Pharma of literature. Right now, he’s working on a number of short stories and poems for an anthology.
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