When The Mountain Weeps

They leave at dusk, when hills turn blue,
past terraced fields their fathers knew.
With calloused palms and woven bags,
they board the buses, clutch their tags.
The festival lights fade from sight—
a sister’s laugh, a mother’s fright.
For Gulf-bound wind or Malaysian rain,
they trade their mountains for a chain
of borrowed money, stamped permits,
and concrete tombs where hope can split.

In Doha’s heat or Dubai’s glass,
twelve hours bend a man to grass
that isn’t grass—it’s stucco, steel,
a plaster wound that will not heal.
They sleep in rooms of sweating tin,
tongues thick with salt, chins sharp and thin.
No puja bells, no monsoon smell,
just the foreman's curse, the worker's shell.
A son is born via crackling phone—
he cries alone, he cries alone.

But someday, maybe, they will climb
the path they left for stolen time.
Bring bricks of gold to broken doors,
sweep festival dust from earthen floors.
The soil will know their feet again—
their ache, their love, their stubborn strain.
Oh Nepali hands that build the world,
your flag is torn, your back is curled,
yet from your pain, a harvest grows—
a seed no desert ever knows.