Topic: Village and Trees - By Manjul (English Translation)

[kurakani]

Translator: Maya Watson


Village Solitude

I am here. I 'll be here.
I won't go
to the city,
I have no part there

The sound of a flute
touches my every part. I am innocent
like the flute boy's eyes, the flute boy's heart,
I won't go
to the city.

A dog has barked or a stream has flowed,
the wind touched or has not touched the trees:

I am in the foam of every ripple on the waters,
I am in every leaf on all the branches,
I have no place in the noise of the city crowd.

Cocks crow or don't,
someone whistle or doesn't:
wherever you put your hand, there you've touched my heart.

Where men have walked and have not walked
I am down both roads.
father heavens
and mother horizon,
happy and satisfied,
I won't go
to the city.

Welcome, whoever comes from there
but don't lug the city with you
or I'll have no part,
not even in people's hearts.

[kurakani]

Country Road

Don't put me down as a muddy track,
don't I reach the hills and fields,
don't I reach the solitudes and towns?

I go to where country roads end
and where roads are
entering the highways
I disappear,

striding forward in the heart.

Evening sometimes rests on my shoulder,
and sometimes the dawn,
moonlight sometimes rests on my shoulder, and sometimes the sun
sometimes a fog, the dew
the stars sleep on my shoulder,

sometimes I stride
as heart-felt song.

Don't put me down as a muddy track.


Night Sky

Like the first words of lovers
the night sky
slowly opens.

Ah! slowly slowly
so many stars
hundreds thousands of elated blazings
stark
clear
happiness flashed across that lover's sky,

but as if stolen
gradually one by one
why are the stars lost with dawn?

and a blank white face
comes into view
wearing a red tika

like the village bride
at day break
rising for her work.


Clear Water

water
virginity's face

water
the eyes of a woman raped

water
a child snatched from death's bony mouth
held in warm arms

water
the baby lying fearlessly
in mother's lap

water
truth's truth
life's life

does this water
turn its gaze on you
as it does on me?

Ravines

here, the bigger the ravines
the bigger the shadows that sleep in them
while the glowing sun rests on the mountains' feet

the bigger the ravines
the bigger the shadows that sleep in them

how big a hole
do sorrow helplessness loneliness dig
in the village of the heart?
no matter how the sun of happiness blazes
darkness still sleeps in the bottom of the pit

to rid the village
the chest
of shadow
the holes must be filled in level
or the sun must be brought directly above.
It's difficult to do.

The Village Light

Village light,
herself beaming,
lover of my heart's glow;
I gave my torch to her.

I said "know that whoever walks in this beam,
my loving hand is with them."

"Ah, what a beautiful thing to say,"
the words leapt from her lips.
I said "darkness isn't only outside,
it is in the heart.
Turn this beam there also,
I am with you
in the struggle to bring light."

Her eyes filled with tears,
only her silence spoke.

"You won't cry
when I go," I said
because you have light to dry your tears."

And I
couldn't look at her face.

Rebirth

From the pungent scent of the soil
it seems in my last life I was here.

A rooster crows,
brother Lama [2] meets his palms in namaskar, [3]
myself I smile,
all the joys of that life coming close.

I don't see dreams of being chased
or of lovers leaving me.
I see my image innocent
in the eyes of a woman in the field breaking clods.

From the pungent scent of the soil
it seems I'm in my last life even now,

and in my next life, how will I be born?
As a human child?
A poet?

Sun and Shadow

On the mountain ridges
sun and cloud sit together,
light and shadow
the slope's inseparable parts.

In me only
do the bright and dark
quarrel as they sit,
never agreeing, never,
as if they were no part of me,
and wanted no part of each other.

I see the mountain ridges

I see my hear,

I am shocked by the difference

When I see the mountain ridges,
I'm shocked at myself.

[kurakani]

The Dead

There are ravines and cascades,
there are the small green groves and there is black rock,
there is the occasional crow of the cock,
and the sparrow's chirp,

there is a distant look in the eyes,
the is a local tongue you can't comprehend,
a cold breeze,
the morning paths where no one has walked,
white prayer flags flap with the wind:
symbols of the dead,
memories of the dead,
but where
are the living?

[kurakani]

Fog
Five minutes ago nothing was,
now a thick fog rises,
I was born
into the world thus,

although the fog
rose from nothing,

emptiness was.

Our coming and going
is thus.

[kurakani]

School

On the road to the new school site
more sheep than people walk,

sheep like people
people like sheep,
innocent, hopeless
ignorant, loveable

on the road to the new school site
more sheep than people walk.

There is the old school building
but the door is closed.
The school's doors opens
but the classrooms are empty,
black boards, desks, and chairs like sheep,
and when the headmaster leaves for town
they are sheep without a shepherd.

Even when the new school is finished
probably there will still be more sheep than people here.

[kurakani]

Village Stream

I am the village stream,
no one can stop
my flowing,

I sing
but not to tell you anything,
not to make you understand,
but those who listen
hear their own sorrows,
feel their own worries

they even get answers.
Amazing !

But to tell you something
I never sing,
I sing for singing,
natures tongue
those who try to understand, understand.
Those who don't can't.

I am the village stream,
no one can stop
my flowing.

[kurakani]

Mist and Smoke

I see I am lesser to the mist
that, rising from a ravine,
spreads across the slope,

starting out low,
goes only up.

I see I am lesser to the mist
that from a small crevice
gets larger larger
and dissolves.

And below the mist,
a mist-like smoke
that, rising
from the fire
mixes with the clouds.

I see it too go upward
never traveling down.

I see smoke rising from a fire
that is damp,
and doesn't burn well
but I see that the roiling smoke rises up up.

[kurakani]

Village Princess

Princess River
flowing pressed

between the dark, princely boulders,

They try to hold, to block me but smashing the barriers,
singing,
dancing to the boom of my own rhythm,
I flow.

If I get angry,
hoisting the flood on my back,
I roll over the rocks, carrying them before me,
smashing their embrace, right and left.

If I'm happy,
I come singing songs for everyone,
I trundle down the mountain
to the tune of my own echo.

[kurakani]

The Poet

In a secluded spot, the Poet speaks
with the sky
and the horizon
with the sunlight
and the shadow;

he speaks with the cliffs
and the jungle
he speaks with the river
and the fields of rice and corn;

he speaks with the birds
and the flags fluttering flags
he speaks with the cattle
and the clucking and crowing of the fowl;

he talks with nothingness
and so if he happened upon a friend
think how he would talk!
But the poet isn't lonely.

Yet when the moonlight floods everything
or for example on the darkest night
when there is a lonely flute
or a tungna
the Poet's heart
takes flight
to the place where people
love and think of him.

He can't sleep.
He is speechless.
The Poet weeps, and inside him an ordinary man
also weeps. He wants to occupy the spaces
between the stars or else the topmost layer of pitch black night.

The Poet cannot sleep.
He is speechless.

[kurakani]

Tungna

My wife rises
from the playing tungna
she is dancing
or weeping with dishevelled hair
I can't tell
her heart rises
from the playing tungna.

What loving couple anywhere in the world wish to part in
their happiness
or even in their sorrow?

My wife's eyes rise
from the playing tungna
when she looks at me
I melt.

I left her
alone to come here,

and when the tungna plays,
I repent