1.
The glass of chrysanthemums —
my mother tells me,
cut the leaves off or
take out the leaves
from the stems with your hands.
गोदावरी – will stay fresh in a vase
of water for weeks.
2.
If you look after anything well,
it will show signs of prospering.
In this sense,
relationships of care,
with material belongings
and sentient beings —
with anything
are all very much similar.
3.
In a Nepali household,
often love is quiet.
We let its silence speak for us
instead. Relationships of care
form from this paradigm.
4.
Not all silence is the same.
Not the silenced or
what sits
in your belly
like a dormant volcano.
Therapy in its simple form
is communication.
This translation is the hardest.
5.
Blue English
sea of western
land and faces.
My immigrant parents
only know how to work
for survival.
6.
After all these years,
I break
from my own spell.
Beauty sheds, गोदावरी wilts.
When they reach
the end of their vibrancy,
throw in the heap of
home-made compost
outside.
7.
Soils of im/permanence.
Soon they will meet
the dismembered.
Millions of bodies, now
fertile soil, growing
as trees
tend the flowerbeds.
Kamana Rai is a Nepali-British poet based in the UK. She is currently in completion of BA English with Creative Writing at Queen Mary University of London. Kamana incorporates her cultural identity and multi-lingual writing in her poetry as emotional and political acts of expression. She is currently working on a poetry zine project. You can follow her creative process here: @loversndreamers_