Every morning dank scuffling begins on the edge of our roof as hungry pigeons leave their nearby shrinking shelters and rush towards our old Kathmandu house when my mother calls them as usual, chirruping to them in a high melodic note, “Come, come, come pigeons.” Then they lean over the solar panel’s rusty edge and look at us with dark shiny eyes and wait for the sudden appearance of the manna. “Breakfast?” we ask. They lower their head rapidly, spring off to the floor and start picking the grains. Finished, they fly off. It’s goodbye till we wake up the next morning to recreate the same scene once again. Leaning against the wall, I take a sip of lukewarm herbal water, and exchange glances with the colorful birds flying low above me in the gorgeous morning sky. Their habitats are waning in the face of global warming but I can no longer pretend that things won’t be fine for them, for us. This generation is growing up with a lot more reverence for nature and I believe in the extraordinary power of human connections. Suddenly, the wind howls. Fallen pigeon feathers and chocolate wrappers litter the terrace floor and a squirrel swirls past my legs. Kathmandu is still sleeping. It’s not Saturday but the city seems eerily silent. Around me, the painted deities sneer and snarl. High above, a flock of pigeons coronet the sky.
Bhuwan Thapaliya is a poet writing in English from Kathmandu, Nepal. He works as an economist and is the author of four poetry collections. His poems have been published in Wordcity Literary Journal, Pendemics Literary Journal, Poetry Life and Times, Trouvaille Review, Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic Initiative(Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University), International Human Rights Art Festival, Poetry and Covid: A Project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, University of Plymouth, and Nottingham Trent University, Pandemic Magazine, The Poet, Valient Scribe, Strong Verse, Jerry Jazz Musician, VOICES ( Education Project), Longfellow Literary Project, Poets Against the War among many others.
