Claims of an Ancient Poet
I have cultivated with my labour
This green smile
Over this hill.
These pastorals,
I have placed these shiny Himals
Plumb on my sweats' currents.
I have carried these stars
Down the ladders of water
And scattered shiny lights
All over the city.
Walking through a wooded village
Carrying the first infant baby sun
Like a pitcher on my waist.
I have come to wake the city up
To dews' music in the morning.
Rhododendrons
As if growing from my blood
Are blooming with rising rage or red
In between the plaited
Mountain tresses of my lover.
Oh, superior poet of the city!
You always write poem of
Himal, hills and rhododendrons
Looking at some photographs!
But stepping on airstreams
I am reaching my village
Haunted and swooning.
The settlements, the country
Where orchids cannot bloom
For their colours are all stolen away
Where the Mountain
Stripped of its identity
Stands in grief
(Translated from Nepali by Abhi Subedi)
