Oh, Orimen!

A Nepali poem by Manjul Miteri: Translated to English by Hem Bishwakarma

Orimen¹!

Oh, Orimen!

Mouthful of your Tiffin

Snatched by the ‘Little Boy’² away!

The Tiffin box, adorned with flowers

Scattered and spoilt;

Blown out brutally,

A handful of your young breath

In the silence of Hiroshima Peace Museum,

In the depth of this stillness,

Sobs every day and night

Cascading the incessant tears!

.

Oh, Orimen!

Blown out

With the hot lethal smoke of the Bomb

In the misfortune of your hunger and thirst

Looking at your Tiffin box that carries

An unuttered scream

I feel that

For several times,

In the nooks and corner of this earth

By the tremor of the missiles

Blasted in the war celebrations

With your deformed body

While bearing the creviced earth

You are postured in the peace

.

Oh, Orimen!

The war is slaying many chances

Countless innocents like you

The war is defeated many chances

With the innocents like you

Then,

As your Tiffin box

Standing on the ruins of life

That are destroyed and slain

The war is writing for many times

The history of triumph and courage!

.

The war

In the sky, in cloud, in air

In the rays of sun and moon

In the womb of the earth

In the surface of the oceans

Is trying to pen a ballad

Wiping out the existence of life

.

We out to teach,

The scripts of love, life, peace and harmony

Copied from your Tiffin box

To all the guns that merely write death!

.

With the same avowal

I have arrived feeling so frantic

From the soil of The Buddha, Nepal

Striding on the roads fired in war

To cast this message to you

Sorry If I am belated!

¹An innocent boy who lost his life in Hiroshima Bombing during WWII.

²A devastating atomic bomb dropped in Japanese city, Hiroshima during WWII.

Manjul Miteri is a  renowned sculptor and poet from Nepal. He is currently working with the biggest sculpture of Gautam Budhha in Asia in Japan. 

Hem Bishwakarma is a translator and poet from Nepal. His works have been published in national and international poetry and literature journals and magazines.

First published in Gorkha Times

.

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