Remika Thapa
One day, you said:
The path that goes by the spring water
Is enveloped by the fragrance
Coming from the paddy-fields on its two flanks
Like the fragrance of your lock just bathed
Dhokrey flower tree in full bloom also adds to it
Today I give to you this autumn sky
Filled with fragrance of ripening rice field
and the wild flowers
In the winter morning
The Teesta also looks dark
Like an unwashed face
Today, I choose this midday for you
To give you the deep sweet water in entirety
That is quietly submerged in itself
With the round shadow of the sun in its depth
I give you all the deep sweet water
That is like your eyes in reverie
One day in the month of Baishakh, you said:
Have you ever seen
Tall bamboos and pine trees
Clasping each other and soughing?
And have you ever heard the wind’s fluid whistle —
The harmony of all those sounds of trees?
Yes, today I’ll give you that very warm breath
Oh! Earth!
All the resources are yours
I’ll give you fistful of my devotion
Keep it soaked in the fluid body of your love
Just touch the warm drops of my eyes
At this moment of love making
I am like a soul unfathomably deep and awed.
Translated from Nepali by Manprasad Subba
Remika Thapa, a noted poet, critic and translator, has four volumes of poems and two books of critical essays to her credit. Besides, she has two books of translation in Nepali, one, Tagore’s Geetanjali translated from Bengali and the other, a Maithili novel, Sarokar, by Pradeep Bihari, a distinguished Maithili writer. Her doctoral thesis is on “The Female Characters in Haiman Das Kirat’s Short-stories.” She is the Head of the Department of Nepali in Parimal Mitra Smriti College under North Bengal University.