~Laxmi Prasad Devkota~
Dead tired I am, O God !
Make me a sheep, please.
This house of mine, a sword of Damocles
This bane of thinking
This sin of knowing
This heart-burning judgment of conscience
The three kinds of worries that I may fall into
This show of rising higher
This curse of bearing responsibility !
No ! No ! I so not want the magnificent pomp !
Let all the accounts be cleared after death !
Sweet and carefree !
Give me a beast’s irresponsibility !
O God !
Life without a spade but not the curse of labor,
The sweet thing is but to crunch the self growing grass !
Why the eighty-four types of dishes?
Why the tongue artificialised?
Why the ears artificialised?
Why so many perfumes for a dirty nose?
Why the sculpture-writer Vedavyas and a number of works like Shukabahattari fancy false?
Why the hard labor of ignorance deep?
Why the yoking of the body?
So much of tears and cries- all of no use !
So much of shrieks of laughters for the change !
Why such a great deception over the flaming funeral pyre ?
Why playing on so many strings?
Listen to me !
Let the strong sufiet as they like; but knowledge should not belong to me
A true hermit is the sheep.
the natural taste being the green,
The bleating may not blaspheme the virtues of god
Singing the praise in taste, may not the cloth be woven;
Cloth may not be woven; let it be grown all over the body.
Let me fight with my horns.
Let there be no spiritual fight.
Let time glide smoothly !
Let there be no universal scorching-the atomic destruction of the atheist.
Let me not make the false and sophisticated wisdom soar,
So that the queer future may give a string !
Let not the devil sit on my horns
As the symbol of knowledge.
Let me not dabble at the trap of civilization;
Let me not soar higher leaving the reality behind.
Let not my soul fall towards the ideals.
Let not the false strings play sweeter songs than “Ba ! Ba !”
Let me love the lamb.
I need only paternal feelings, O Lord
This is all I want.
No matter If he dies. It is up to the wish of my Lord !
Worry I won’t- let not my breast dry till he lives,
Until his body becomes full.
Or the grass becomes hard
And he does not become able to eat by himself
And no doctor is to be called.
Let my soul, inclined towards terrible black art, never take speed.
Let not jump to the void like a sage.
Or with an artificial imagination.
Let me not create distorted magic of variegated colors out of magic-less truth
Let me not become a Brahmin to live on dirty water washing away other’s sin;
Let me not advance my feet towards Hell, being fully conscious of sins as the virtuous persons.
Let me not reform in order to expose this world.
Let me not patch up the old and tattered things.
Let me lit the light of life,
Like the simple beautiful and un-beautiful light of Nature,
When dying
Let me reach higher up than the sage,
And to the heaven, than the Brahmin,
To the abode of bliss than the pious,
Let me not point out a defect !
Let me have divine animality, O Providence,
Be kind to me and seize me quickly !
Come ! Please !
Make me a sheep right now.
– Modern Nepali Poems. Front Cover. Royal Nepal Academy, 1972 – English poetry – 327 pages
(Source : Pen Himalaya)
