Oh, Orimen!

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

Orimen*!
Oh, Orimen!
Mouthful of your Tiffin
Snatched by the ‘Little Boy’*!
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 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
In the nooks and corners of this Earth,
By the tremor of the missiles
Blasted in war celebrations,
Your deformed body
that bears the creviced Earth,
Is postured in peace.

Oh, Orimen!
The war slays 
Countless innocents like you.
The war deletes many opportunities
For innocents like you.
Then,
As your Tiffin box
Stands on the ruins of life
That is destroyed and slain,
War repetitively writes
Histories of triumph and courage!

The war
In the sky, in the cloud, in the air,
In the rays of the sun and the 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 are 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 land of the Buddha, Nepal,
Striding on the roads fired in war,
To bring this message to you.
Sorry, if I have been too late!

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

*A 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, edited by Borderless to suit our needs.

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