Oh! Lockdown, I am writing a poetry

By Ashok Silwal

How to define it?
What word to find?
I look inside myself
And I feel
A kind of emptiness,
A kind of fear,
A kind of zeroism.
There is also laziness,
There is uncertainty,
There is vagueness.

First lockdown has upset my life
But there was a sense of discovery,
An unsuspected energy,
Something surreal.

Now, I’m trying to swim in the second wave
With eyes lost in the void at times.
Living in attempts and strivings,
In the provisional,
In the precariousness,
Energetically refusing to give up..
Looking for new balances
Between the outside restrictions
And the boundless space of my inside
In meditations and dreams,
In reflections and projects,
In thoughts and feelings..

Then I ask myself, in these days,
What are the things I miss the most?
My beloved mountains, their paths,
The green of the meadows and trees,
The cold air that pinches the face in the early morning,
The body fatigue,
The starry sky in front of the door of the refuge,
And, the people from the world,
Conversing with them
About life and death,
About Nepal and other countries,
About Himalaya and Ocean,
About habits, uses and ways of life,
About religions and traditions,
About Buddha,
About girls and beer,
About experiences,
About good and evil,
About sciences and literature,
About smiles and tears …

What are the things I miss the least?
The familiar feelings that I fortunately
Always have at hand in these days,
The smells of home,
The social networks: I’m always on my screens.
The resting laziness on my bed,
The little things of everyday life,
I’m enjoying them a lot in this time,
The idea of the time running.
Is it so wasted ?
And really, I’m not clear about …

But I know that those things
That I miss the least today
Will take me again to those
That I miss the most nowadays
I will be back in the mountains soon.

Because after the storm comes the calm …
Strength and courage!
YES! I WILL MAKE IT !!