My one-and-a-half-year-old daughter
Leaves holding my finger
And runs away to catch a butterfly
Fluttering in the yard –
The butterfly keeps on flying around
And she keeps on following it.
The butterfly flies away from the view
And then she starts crying;
I hold my daughter to my bosom,
Caress her, try to soothe her.
I feel like saying – ‘Don’t cry, chhori*!
The butterfly is not our living;
It’s only a deception like a dream’.
I too have arrived in this city
Leaving my home and village,
My father and mother –
Following and chasing my dream.
And my dream has further eluded me –
It has run away from me.
But like my daughter
I cannot cry
Even though I want to.
Upendra Subba [Upendra Bahadur Angdembe Limbu] (born 1971) Nepal
Translated from Nepali by Haris C. Adhikari
Source: Modern Poetry in Translation
* Chhori – daughter
Leaves holding my finger
And runs away to catch a butterfly
Fluttering in the yard –
The butterfly keeps on flying around
And she keeps on following it.
The butterfly flies away from the view
And then she starts crying;
I hold my daughter to my bosom,
Caress her, try to soothe her.
I feel like saying – ‘Don’t cry, chhori*!
The butterfly is not our living;
It’s only a deception like a dream’.
I too have arrived in this city
Leaving my home and village,
My father and mother –
Following and chasing my dream.
And my dream has further eluded me –
It has run away from me.
But like my daughter
I cannot cry
Even though I want to.
Upendra Subba [Upendra Bahadur Angdembe Limbu] (born 1971) Nepal
Translated from Nepali by Haris C. Adhikari
Source: Modern Poetry in Translation
* Chhori – daughter
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