Village Solitude<\/p>\n
I am here. I ‘ll be here.<\/p>\n
I won’t go<\/p>\n
to the city,<\/p>\n
I have no part there<\/p>\n
The sound of a flute<\/p>\n
touches my every part. I am innocent<\/p>\n
like the flute boy’s eyes, the flute boy’s heart,<\/p>\n
I won’t go<\/p>\n
to the city.<\/p>\n
A dog has barked or a stream has flowed,<\/p>\n
the wind touched or has not touched the trees:<\/p>\n
I am in the foam of every ripple on the waters,<\/p>\n
I am in every leaf on all the branches,<\/p>\n
I have no place in the noise of the city crowd.<\/p>\n
Cocks crow or don’t,<\/p>\n
someone whistle or doesn’t:<\/p>\n
wherever you put your hand, there you’ve touched my heart.<\/p>\n
Where men have walked and have not walked<\/p>\n
I am down both roads.<\/p>\n
father heavens<\/p>\n
and mother horizon,<\/p>\n
happy and satisfied,<\/p>\n
I won’t go<\/p>\n
to the city.<\/p>\n
Welcome, whoever comes from there<\/p>\n
but don’t lug the city with you<\/p>\n
or I’ll have no part,<\/p>\n
not even in people’s hearts.<\/p>\n
Country Road<\/p>\n
Don’t put me down as a muddy track,<\/p>\n
don’t I reach the hills and fields,<\/p>\n
don’t I reach the solitudes and towns?<\/p>\n
I go to where country roads end<\/p>\n
and where roads are<\/p>\n
entering the highways<\/p>\n
I disappear,<\/p>\n
striding forward in the heart.<\/p>\n
Evening sometimes rests on my shoulder,<\/p>\n
and sometimes the dawn,<\/p>\n
moonlight sometimes rests on my shoulder, and sometimes the sun<\/p>\n
sometimes a fog, the dew<\/p>\n
the stars sleep on my shoulder,<\/p>\n
sometimes I stride<\/p>\n
as heart-felt song.<\/p>\n
Don’t put me down as a muddy track.<\/p>\n
The Dead<\/p>\n
There are ravines and cascades,<\/p>\n
there are the small green groves and there is black rock,<\/p>\n
there is the occasional crow of the cock,<\/p>\n
and the sparrow’s chirp,<\/p>\n
there is a distant look in the eyes,<\/p>\n
the is a local tongue you can’t comprehend,<\/p>\n
a cold breeze,<\/p>\n
the morning paths where no one has walked,<\/p>\n
white prayer flags flap with the wind:<\/p>\n
symbols of the dead,<\/p>\n
memories of the dead,<\/p>\n
but where<\/p>\n
are the living?<\/p>\n
Fog<\/p>\n
Five minutes ago nothing was,<\/p>\n
now a thick fog rises,<\/p>\n
I was born<\/p>\n
into the world thus,<\/p>\n
although the fog<\/p>\n
rose from nothing,<\/p>\n
emptiness was.<\/p>\n
Our coming and going<\/p>\n
is thus.<\/p>\n
School<\/p>\n
On the road to the new school site<\/p>\n
more sheep than people walk,<\/p>\n
sheep like people<\/p>\n
people like sheep,<\/p>\n
innocent, hopeless<\/p>\n
ignorant, loveable<\/p>\n
on the road to the new school site<\/p>\n
more sheep than people walk.<\/p>\n
There is the old school building<\/p>\n
but the door is closed.<\/p>\n
The school’s doors opens<\/p>\n
but the classrooms are empty,<\/p>\n
black boards, desks, and chairs like sheep,<\/p>\n
and when the headmaster leaves for town<\/p>\n
they are sheep without a shepherd.<\/p>\n
Even when the new school is finished<\/p>\n
probably there will still be more sheep than people here.<\/p>\n
Village Stream<\/p>\n
I am the village stream,<\/p>\n
no one can stop<\/p>\n
my flowing,<\/p>\n
I sing<\/p>\n
but not to tell you anything,<\/p>\n
not to make you understand,<\/p>\n
but those who listen<\/p>\n
hear their own sorrows,<\/p>\n
feel their own worries<\/p>\n
they even get answers.<\/p>\n
Amazing !<\/p>\n
But to tell you something<\/p>\n
I never sing,<\/p>\n
I sing for singing,<\/p>\n
natures tongue<\/p>\n
those who try to understand, understand.<\/p>\n
Those who don’t can’t.<\/p>\n
I am the village stream,<\/p>\n
no one can stop<\/p>\n
my flowing.<\/p>\n
Mist and Smoke<\/p>\n
I see I am lesser to the mist<\/p>\n
that, rising from a ravine,<\/p>\n
spreads across the slope,<\/p>\n
starting out low,<\/p>\n
goes only up.<\/p>\n
I see I am lesser to the mist<\/p>\n
that from a small crevice<\/p>\n
gets larger larger<\/p>\n
and dissolves.<\/p>\n
And below the mist,<\/p>\n
a mist-like smoke<\/p>\n
that, rising<\/p>\n
from the fire<\/p>\n
mixes with the clouds.<\/p>\n
I see it too go upward<\/p>\n
never traveling down.<\/p>\n
I see smoke rising from a fire<\/p>\n
that is damp,<\/p>\n
and doesn’t burn well<\/p>\n
but I see that the roiling smoke rises up up.<\/p>\n
Village Princess<\/p>\n
Princess River<\/p>\n
flowing pressed<\/p>\n
between the dark, princely boulders,<\/p>\n
They try to hold, to block me but smashing the barriers,<\/p>\n
singing,<\/p>\n
dancing to the boom of my own rhythm,<\/p>\n
I flow.<\/p>\n
If I get angry,<\/p>\n
hoisting the flood on my back,<\/p>\n
I roll over the rocks, carrying them before me,<\/p>\n
smashing their embrace, right and left.<\/p>\n
If I’m happy,<\/p>\n
I come singing songs for everyone,<\/p>\n
I trundle down the mountain<\/p>\n
to the tune of my own echo.<\/p>\n
The Poet<\/p>\n
In a secluded spot, the Poet speaks<\/p>\n
with the sky<\/p>\n
and the horizon<\/p>\n
with the sunlight<\/p>\n
and the shadow;<\/p>\n
he speaks with the cliffs<\/p>\n
and the jungle<\/p>\n
he speaks with the river<\/p>\n
and the fields of rice and corn;<\/p>\n
he speaks with the birds<\/p>\n
and the flags fluttering flags<\/p>\n
he speaks with the cattle<\/p>\n
and the clucking and crowing of the fowl;<\/p>\n
he talks with nothingness<\/p>\n
and so if he happened upon a friend<\/p>\n
think how he would talk!<\/p>\n
But the poet isn’t lonely.<\/p>\n
Yet when the moonlight floods everything<\/p>\n
or for example on the darkest night<\/p>\n
when there is a lonely flute<\/p>\n
or a tungna<\/p>\n
the Poet’s heart<\/p>\n
takes flight<\/p>\n
to the place where people<\/p>\n
love and think of him.<\/p>\n
He can’t sleep.<\/p>\n
He is speechless.<\/p>\n
The Poet weeps, and inside him an ordinary man<\/p>\n
also weeps. He wants to occupy the spaces<\/p>\n
between the stars or else the topmost layer of pitch black night.<\/p>\n
The Poet cannot sleep.<\/p>\n
He is speechless.<\/p>\n
Tungna [1]<\/p>\n
My wife rises<\/p>\n
from the playing tungna<\/p>\n
she is dancing<\/p>\n
or weeping with dishevelled hair<\/p>\n
I can’t tell<\/p>\n
her heart rises<\/p>\n
from the playing tungna.<\/p>\n
What loving couple anywhere in the world wish to part in<\/p>\n
their happiness<\/p>\n
or even in their sorrow?<\/p>\n
My wife’s eyes rise<\/p>\n
from the playing tungna<\/p>\n
when she looks at me<\/p>\n
I melt.<\/p>\n
I left her<\/p>\n
alone to come here,<\/p>\n
and when the tungna plays,<\/p>\n
I repent<\/p>\n
Innocence<\/p>\n
The village looks at me from untutored eyes,<\/p>\n
but the shadow of knowledge is there.<\/p>\n
I look back with eyes of the scholar<\/p>\n
but the shadow of ignorance is there.<\/p>\n
If our knowing and unknowing meet<\/p>\n
what an indescribable thing will be born!<\/p>\n
I prefer its gaze to my own.<\/p>\n
Bridge<\/p>\n
When the heart has been shattered<\/p>\n
and the river of tears has flowed<\/p>\n
how can the bridge<\/p>\n
between the two banks stand?<\/p>\n
In two of the biggest boulders<\/p>\n
holes must be drilled,<\/p>\n
a cable inserted and bound.<\/p>\n
On both banks pits must be dug,<\/p>\n
and the boulders buried there,<\/p>\n
covered with other stones,<\/p>\n
and a wall of mud and rock erected.<\/p>\n
Will that suffice?<\/p>\n
And then sometimes everything has to be plastered with cement as well.<\/p>\n
When the heart of the land has been shattered<\/p>\n
and the river of tears has flown,<\/p>\n
to hold the bridge that joins the banks,<\/p>\n
we need moorings<\/p>\n
stronger<\/p>\n
than the bridge.<\/p>\n
Night Sky<\/p>\n
Like the first words of lovers<\/p>\n
the night sky<\/p>\n
slowly opens.<\/p>\n
Ah! slowly slowly<\/p>\n
so many stars<\/p>\n
hundreds thousands of elated blazings<\/p>\n
stark<\/p>\n
clear<\/p>\n
happiness flashed across that lover’s sky,<\/p>\n
but as if stolen<\/p>\n
gradually one by one<\/p>\n
why are the stars lost with dawn?<\/p>\n
and a blank white face<\/p>\n
comes into view<\/p>\n
wearing a red tika<\/p>\n
like the village bride<\/p>\n
at day break<\/p>\n
rising for her work.<\/p>\n
Clear Water<\/p>\n
water<\/p>\n
virginity’s face<\/p>\n
water<\/p>\n
the eyes of a woman raped<\/p>\n
water<\/p>\n
a child snatched from death’s bony mouth<\/p>\n
held in warm arms<\/p>\n
water<\/p>\n
the baby lying fearlessly<\/p>\n
in mother’s lap<\/p>\n
water<\/p>\n
truth’s truth<\/p>\n
life’s life<\/p>\n
does this water<\/p>\n
turn its gaze on you<\/p>\n
as it does on me?<\/p>\n
Ravines<\/p>\n
here, the bigger the ravines<\/p>\n
the bigger the shadows that sleep in them<\/p>\n
while the glowing sun rests on the mountains’ feet<\/p>\n
the bigger the ravines<\/p>\n
the bigger the shadows that sleep in them<\/p>\n
how big a hole<\/p>\n
do sorrow helplessness loneliness dig<\/p>\n
in the village of the heart?<\/p>\n
no matter how the sun of happiness blazes<\/p>\n
darkness still sleeps in the bottom of the pit<\/p>\n
to rid the village<\/p>\n
the chest<\/p>\n
of shadow<\/p>\n
the holes must be filled in level<\/p>\n
or the sun must be brought directly above.<\/p>\n
It’s difficult to do.<\/p>\n
The Village Light<\/p>\n
Village light,<\/p>\n
herself beaming,<\/p>\n
lover of my heart’s glow;<\/p>\n
I gave my torch to her.<\/p>\n
I said “know that whoever walks in this beam,<\/p>\n
my loving hand is with them.”<\/p>\n
“Ah, what a beautiful thing to say,”<\/p>\n
the words leapt from her lips.<\/p>\n
I said “darkness isn’t only outside,<\/p>\n
it is in the heart.<\/p>\n
Turn this beam there also,<\/p>\n
I am with you<\/p>\n
in the struggle to bring light.”<\/p>\n
Her eyes filled with tears,<\/p>\n
only her silence spoke.<\/p>\n
“You won’t cry<\/p>\n
when I go,” I said<\/p>\n
because you have light to dry your tears.”<\/p>\n
And I<\/p>\n
couldn’t look at her face.<\/p>\n
Rebirth<\/p>\n
From the pungent scent of the soil<\/p>\n
it seems in my last life I was here.<\/p>\n
A rooster crows,<\/p>\n
brother Lama [2] meets his palms in namaskar, [3]<\/p>\n
myself I smile,<\/p>\n
all the joys of that life coming close.<\/p>\n
I don’t see dreams of being chased<\/p>\n
or of lovers leaving me.<\/p>\n
I see my image innocent<\/p>\n
in the eyes of a woman in the field breaking clods.<\/p>\n
From the pungent scent of the soil<\/p>\n
it seems I’m in my last life even now,<\/p>\n
and in my next life, how will I be born?<\/p>\n
As a human child?<\/p>\n
A poet?<\/p>\n
Sun and Shadow<\/p>\n
On the mountain ridges<\/p>\n
sun and cloud sit together,<\/p>\n
light and shadow<\/p>\n
the slope’s inseparable parts.<\/p>\n
In me only<\/p>\n
do the bright and dark<\/p>\n
quarrel as they sit,<\/p>\n
never agreeing, never,<\/p>\n
as if they were no part of me,<\/p>\n
and wanted no part of each other.<\/p>\n
I see the mountain ridges<\/p>\n
I see my hear,<\/p>\n
I am shocked by the difference<\/p>\n
When I see the mountain ridges,<\/p>\n
I’m shocked at myself.<\/p>\n
The Dance<\/p>\n
When you take someone’s hand<\/p>\n
mountains on the horizon join,<\/p>\n
when you laugh<\/p>\n
a breeze quivers,<\/p>\n
when you walk<\/p>\n
a murmuring stream flows.<\/p>\n
It’s not you<\/p>\n
dancing on the mountain ridge,<\/p>\n
the ridge dances<\/p>\n
dancing dances,<\/p>\n
smiling–there is sun<\/p>\n
serious–shadows come: you become the mountain.<\/p>\n
Farewell<\/p>\n
leaving the village<\/p>\n
walking the path of tears<\/p>\n
going on ahead<\/p>\n
you feel the village following<\/p>\n
glancing back<\/p>\n
you feel your self left behind<\/p>\n
leaving the village<\/p>\n
walking the path of tears<\/p>\n
leaves<\/p>\n
seem to speak<\/p>\n
when you sit<\/p>\n
heavy hearted<\/p>\n
lost at every resting spot<\/p>\n
leaving the village<\/p>\n
walking the path of tears<\/p>\n
looking over the river<\/p>\n
you feel your self has reached the opposite bank<\/p>\n
then having crossed<\/p>\n
your self is abandoned on the bank behind<\/p>\n
while the real is imaginary<\/p>\n
you imagine the real<\/p>\n
leaving the village<\/p>\n
walking the path of tears<\/p>\n
Remembering<\/p>\n
I’m being played on the village flute,<\/p>\n
from Pinky’s eyes<\/p>\n
I’m watching<\/p>\n
the demonic village night,<\/p>\n
as Phurba grips the harrow’s handle<\/p>\n
I’m plowing the pungent soil,<\/p>\n
darling, don’t be angry<\/p>\n
that I’m not now bound in your embrace,<\/p>\n
darling, don’t worry<\/p>\n
that I’m not held between your lips,<\/p>\n
while Birados plays the tungna<\/p>\n
I’m leafing<\/p>\n
through the layers of his feeling,<\/p>\n
I’m being played on the village flute,<\/p>\n
though for six days and six nights<\/p>\n
Kanchi Tamang cowered in the jungle,<\/p>\n
sleeping hungry<\/p>\n
hiding in the rocks,she was made to marry.<\/p>\n
Becoming her,<\/p>\n
I’m swallowing tears of hate,<\/p>\n
spitting on the name “wife”<\/p>\n
they forced her to take,<\/p>\n
I’m being played on the village flute,<\/p>\n
from Yangdorje’s eyes<\/p>\n
I’m watching<\/p>\n
not just the present<\/p>\n
but the future of grandsons, great grandsons,<\/p>\n
In Nasir Tamang’s song<\/p>\n
I’m rising, spreading,<\/p>\n
I’m being played on the village flute.<\/p>\n
[1] tungna: a Nepali four-stringed folk guitar.<\/p>\n
[2] Lama: name of a caste living in the hills of Nepal.<\/p>\n
[3] namaskar: a respectful greeting.<\/p>\n
There are currently no posts in this category.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Translator:<\/strong> Maya Watson<\/p>\n from: nepalikavita<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Village Solitude I am here. I ‘ll be here. I won’t go to the city, I have no part there The sound of a flute...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"yoast_head":"\n