Classic Poem

Minpachas

Minpachas has come!
Water longs to turn to glass
and even fish seek shelter.
People hanker for the bright days
but the sun's gone too far south —
how thin the sunshine now!
Shadows fall, and it's the time
of weeping Nature's desolation.

That sprite called Emerald takes
all green foliage to her parents' house.
Her girl friends are calling her —
but she won't be back for half a year.
How empty the world down here!
Even the birds are sad, and the earth's limbs
have gone slack,
as though its youth had flown.

Our shortened day has little time
to wander the path of light;
it loves the sunshine of the distant Polestar,
ever covering the South,
that smiles for six months
in the sun's embrace.
The North descends today,
in tears, casting off all adornment.

Because day's sparkling jewel
sets in the South
shadowed Nature cries out,
Don't forget me!
Cold blows the wind, sorrow's sigh
for vanished treasure.
We very rich are poor now,
our happiness gone gray.

As though the year had aged,
hair and beards are frosted.
The waters are like energy dried up,
and still they sparkle.
Withered leaves are all a-shudder,
and dried sticks are everywhere
looking like pale
hunchbacked women on the move.

The woods have lost their charm,
marked with the fog and rime.
Just like our bodies
the shrubs turn all to thorn.
Fingernails go blue and throb,
the snow's bite hurts.
Shivering and trembling the heart
and life itself are struck with fright.

The cold is like the touch of death.
The warm is life.
The world's love now is for the fire,
and there's no riches like shining flame.
The blaze roars cheerily
like friendly scrapping children,
happily dancing as the essence
of the heat mounts, beautiful.

But firewood is scarce and dear
and quickly turns to ashes.
The more we try to drive away the cold
the colder it will get.
If you haven't money for woolens
how your bones will chatter:
the life of the people of Nepal —
that's all it is!
But the dreams were beautiful.EnglishLaxmi Prasad Devkota