Kewal Chandra Lama
The black morning, in a jacket of black leather,
and a pair of black eyeglasses,
saves us from the terrible bandit of nightmare, in fact.
But, as the wages of a daylong service,
it demands a day’s labor, and after the day,
on a bed, enclosed by black blinds,
asks for a submission, measured by life
caressing with the skeleton of light.
The glistening mountain transforms into a vicious trader,
the green crosscut trails are the money-lenders,
the melodious blue becomes the credit.
The sunrise becomes a bandit, but the sun does not come up.
There is no one to save me,
from the dark son of light.
Pray! Allow me to sleep, curled up
placing under the pillow
the new football of the old darkness.
[Kewal Chandra Lama (b. 1967) is a Nepali poet of high repute from Darjeeling, India. His published works include Khanda-Akhanda (Short epic, 1991), Kewalaya (Poems, 1993). He is the winner of Yug Paribodh Giri Award (1993).]