At the start of this year, I visited my ancestral village in Nepal. This was a place I had never been to before and only heard stories about. It is where my grandfather was born and lived until he moved the entire family across the border. I have wanted to go there for a long time and I finally did. I met some of the extended family that still lives there. They farm and sell oranges in the nearby market. I spent a week there and this poem was born out of my observations.

After writing the poem, I wanted to create a video but since I did not shoot enough videos while I was there, I used free videos on the internet to put the video together. (Allowing me to also learn this skill).

After the video, I wanted to create my own music to go with it (again, with the intent of learning). The result of this is shared below.

I do intend to post more videos on my YouTube channel … and they will be short poem films. If you are interested or like what you see and want to support me, please subscribe!

Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ly4AiSzOZI (I cannot figure out embedding the video … when I do, it shows up with a error 153)

The poem is below:

When the sun is out, the air is warm
except in rectangular shades of
wooden houses built by ghosts.
Old wrinkled men sit in the sun
alongside cats and dogs and goats.
They rest one foot on another, they
drink raksi from glasses that dangle by their hips.
By mid-day, they are gone,
chasing the sun in other courtyards.

Darkness comes in quickly and the houses
on the opposite mountain become cat eyes
that always surprise us with their numbers.
After seven, the real cold sets in and
we close our shop, eat our dinner
and go to bed.

Work is incessant and necessary,
like breathing.
Movement, even in moments of stillness
is survival.
We have settled here, where we sell
vegetables and fruits and meat and
cramped seats on a bus whose rusted
chassis reminds us of shredded jeans.

Sometimes, we wish we weren’t here or
having to labor so much for so little.
Did we tell you we have Wi-Fi now?
The world, it turns out, is not
much larger than our village.
But why do we fell so much smaller?
Why have we begun swearing and cursing
and calling ourselves poor?
We are only poor in wanting our
brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews
to return, or better yet
never have left.

We have taken up loans to send our kids
so far away they might never return home.
The loans seep into every vacuum,
every silence, every stillness of our life.
They walk and eat and sleep with us.
We find ourselves playing games on social media,
trading our peace for points
that promise to become money.

We have stumbled upon the universal solution.

We believe it is Money.

You tell us, you’re the educated ones.