‘Tomorrow, you watch, god will sprout from me’: Nepali poet Avinash Shrestha in translation

Relative

The cliffs are beautiful
Even more beautiful than flowers

The thorns are sorrowful
Even more sorrowful than colours

The heart drifts high, high above
Even higher than the butterflies, the birds

Age flows
Molten gold flows

Illusion enfolds illusion, in turn hidden by another illusion
Like night enfolds darkness, and darkness hides by night

Metamorphosis

Embracing the river I fall asleep unafraid
& when I wake I become the boundless sea

All night I crawled awake in the lifespan of a caterpillar
In the afternoon dream I’ve transformed into a butterfly in bright air

I was arrogant, cruel but an imperishable thorn until yesterday
Someone heartless has dropped me – in the flower’s brief body

A feather I drift wherever – piggybacking on the wind
In my soul I nurse a primitive desire to be a bird

I’m only a seed today – I know
Tomorrow, you watch, God will sprout from me

Greed

Deep in the heart’s remoteness
there is quiet
In the blue darkness there is
an apparition of you

You – to arrive at the edge of you
my one birth will not do

In the creation-odyssey of arriving towards you
I’m a pilgrim
But there are so many roads
Having to choose bewilders me

Each road promises
it will lead me to you
And the roads – they speak not as themselves
the roads impersonate you
Standing in front of me
in the way of my path...

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