Mohan Himanshu Thapa
I appeared on the earth
on an inverted face resembling sprouting desires.
my eyes got immersed into the dark
and set, like the sun
inside the fog of the morn and the dusk.
But then, inside our age
small trees spouted and grew
the attached boughs tangled the light even more
like the summer-cloud
cloaking the sky.
For this reason,
in the deadening crevices of life
I am seeking for the missing eyes.
In these dark caverns of this epoch
I would watch a different lump of the earth’s soil
spring up
before the fruits and flowers
on the lush tree growing in this epoch
fall aground and degrading like a festering cloud.
I appeared on the earth
on an inverted face resembling sprouting desires.
Translated by Mahesh Paudyal
[Mohan Himanshu Thapa (b. 1936) is renowned both in prose as well as in poetry. Khukurimathi Ek Chauta Badal is a collection of his poems while Sahitya Parichacya is a book of literary criticism. ]