CLOUDS

CLOUDS

1

We are the progeny of unfathomable waters.

                    borne by summer  heat.

At our birth there was great jubilation:

                    laughing, the sun scaled the waves,

Essential, pure and bright,

                   sparkled and glistened.

A far-off  wind was summoned,

          in impassioned spirit danced.

 

2

Our longing was for the atmosphere,    

          exulted was desire;

The clear sunbeam’s small, fine steps

          we softly climbed,

Up and up we climbed, mixed and scattered

          to the sphere of the sky.

The blowing wind carried a strength to shift us over

          jungle, town and ridge.

 

3

The divine manifestation of the earth we saw

          of ridge and plain,

Glen, valley, the nakedness

          of Himalayan wood and spey,

The godly, snaking path of the crystal waterway,

          these waterfalls of tuft and shrubbery,

Of hut and bothy, of clean harmony,

          of palace, of boundary.  

 

By Laxmi Prasad Devkota. Translated from the Nepali.