Someone once said,
“The world is changing.”
I wanted to believe it.
Yet walls keep rising
in the quiet chambers of our hearts.
Humanity frays
under the endless weight of fear and loss.
Still, hope moves—
like the Trishuli River,
wearing down the stones of difference.
Hands reach
across wide boulevards of separation.
Voices rise
above the ever-bustling Asan Bazaar.
The world does not wait for me,
yet rhododendrons
still guide me home.
Even the hardest hearts soften,
like yak-butter lamps
flickering in mantra-lit halls.
So I hold on—
to dawn breaking over Annapurna,
to words I am learning
to speak without fear,
to the breath I share
beneath fluttering prayer flags—
not because the world has changed,
but because, quietly,
I am.
.
Bhuwan Thapaliya
Picture Nick Victor
.