The Subdued Smiles

Bam Dewan


I did not even know…
when the spring came
and attached sprouts on the boughs,
in the bushes
and
carved new love songs
in the tunes of the wild birds,
busy in the raspberries.

In fact, I never know
when the sweet freshness smiles
on the Jure mounds and the meadow!
Kissing the tender foliage of chiyal and cottonwood
what time the day departs.

These are facts only humans can know!

How the old year, with its stick, walks passing the turn?
How the New Year
mounts freely upon the horse of time?

The head should be held high,
to look at all these and comprehend,
yes, the head should be held high!!
Time should be youthful!
Putting the load down,
one should be in a position
to take a puff of breath at the chautari!
Pity! How could a body,
bent down, and hunched by the load,
or a head, bent low
by the tug of the carrying scarf, day and night
know all these?
How could the dark/bright reflections of life
know the colors of that glorious beauty?

I should also be entitled now,
to be a man with the head held high
I should also be allowed, by now,
to walk with human heel.
With moments tethered to burdens,
I don’t know where the smiles of these lips got lost?
I should have been privileged
to caress with these eyes,
the colorful spring blooming up everywhere!

Under the cool shades, at the chautari,
I should have been allowed to sing
the songs of freedom, together with the birds in the woods
now onward,
I must have been allowed to bind myself,
tightly into arms, and love!


chautari: a travelers’ rest on the way, typical to Nepali rustic life