The Musician

I have a friend from the Far East,
who has spent many years of his life
in the cold ground floors of Kathmandu.
He writes beautiful songs
and composes them into sweet melodies
and walks around, singing in his delightful voice
from streets to streets, and from squares to squares,
in cattle farms, and in meadows,
in thick pine groves,
in the cool colonnades of firs and pines,
in fields, among the workers clearing the ridges.
In his songs, hammers and chisels clang,
in his songs, hoes and spades clink,
And echo the tales of the hungry and the naked 
suffocated in injustice and atrocities
oppressed and subdued.
When he touches, the strings of a guitar
with his skilled hands,
the strings vibrate, and keep doing so
in melody
and, to those forceful notes
awake people from far and near,
it seems that the huts along the slope too wake up,
Eyes, extensive like the blue firmament wake
Ripples in the river, and ranges of the mountain wake.
People have not identified his great thoughts
whose poignancy is unknown
even to his intimate companions.
Such a day too will come
when the cloud can no longer shield
his thoughts as bright and warm as the sun;
they will dissipate
brightly all around like rays.
Everyone shall honor and approve of
the beautiful ways he has ventured to trip,
that time shall come, as does the spring
with beautiful flower bouquets
it shall come, brushing aside the burning dejection of winter
carrying a sweet melody along.
I have planted marigolds along the fringe of my farm,
and have grown amaranths at the edge of my courtyard.
I shall make a garland,
and arrange tika* in duna*,
on Bhaitika Day – the day to see his victory-marked smiles,
with tika on forehead and garland around the neck,
I shall disburse his gifts of liberty and awareness
to everyone, everywhere
with happiness and excitement.
I have a friend,
that has come flowing
like a waterfall from a hillside.
He shall live for a few more days
in the squares and streets in Kathmandu,
shall minutely evaluate people’s pain and sorrows
and weave songs to denounce them
dissipate notes.
He vehemently loathes disparity and cruelty,
my friend aspires to live
the rest of his life, not in the town
but in the country, carrying the resonance of his numbers along.
He instills hope,
in the life of people, stiffened by hardship
and inculcates the music of enthusiasm in them.