Paagal (Lunatic)
Увидела это прекрасное стихотворение сегодня в одном кафе на Фрик-стрит…
Paagal (Lunatic)
I see sounds,
I hear sights,
I taste smells,
I touch not heaven but the things from the underworld,
things people do not believe exist,
whose shapes the world does not suspect.
Stones I see as flowers
lying water-smoothed by the water’s edge,
rocks of tender forms
in the moonlight
when the heavenly sorceress smiles at me,
putting out leaves, softening, glistening,
throbbing, they rise up like mute maniacs,
like flowers, a kind of moon-bird’s flowers.
I talk to them the way they talk to me,
a language, friend,
that can’t be written or printed or spoken,
can’t be understood, can’t be heard.
Their language comes in ripples to the moonlit Ganges banks,
ripple by ripple -
oh, yes, friend! I’m crazy -
that’s just the way I am.
(1953)
Laxmi Prasad Devkota (Translated to English by David Rubin)
Paagal (Lunatic)
I see sounds,
I hear sights,
I taste smells,
I touch not heaven but the things from the underworld,
things people do not believe exist,
whose shapes the world does not suspect.
Stones I see as flowers
lying water-smoothed by the water’s edge,
rocks of tender forms
in the moonlight
when the heavenly sorceress smiles at me,
putting out leaves, softening, glistening,
throbbing, they rise up like mute maniacs,
like flowers, a kind of moon-bird’s flowers.
I talk to them the way they talk to me,
a language, friend,
that can’t be written or printed or spoken,
can’t be understood, can’t be heard.
Their language comes in ripples to the moonlit Ganges banks,
ripple by ripple -
oh, yes, friend! I’m crazy -
that’s just the way I am.
(1953)
Laxmi Prasad Devkota (Translated to English by David Rubin)