Purna Bahadur Vaidya, the Newar poet, has written a remarkable collection of poems in Nepal Bhasa: LA LA KHA (WATER IS WATER), a collection of 84 poems refracted through water. These intently crafted poems, written over a twenty year period, reflect a mind intimately involved with its own reflection as it is refracted and clarified through a single element in its manifest and various forms.
– Biography of Purna Vaidya from The Drunken Boat
Soil and Water
Water
So close to the soil
no separate shade of its own
Its shadow
sticks the surface
In fact…
such closeness
a unity
of identity
Water never parts from the surface
dried up,
but loses itself
in the pleasure of wetness
Where it cannot stay on the surface
There, together with the soil, swept away.
Wherever it settles
it widens its embrace
with devotion
despite the wind’s sweep
and the suns absorption
After a while…
it travels on restlessly
traversing the sky
with lightning’s terrible gaze
and harsh roaring
Then…
leaping
it again
takes up the soil
Various and all, the flowers and fruit,
the green leaves and grass,
between water and soil, pages turned
in a lover’s tale,
the sacrifice written by nature
on the earth.
Note to reader:This translation of the poem, Soil and Water, has not appeared elsewhere. This translation was provided with kind regards by Wayne Amtzis (see below for his bio).
[The above photo is a microscopic representation of algae, glass diatoms, that grow on the soil in a marsh ecosystem. Photo courtesy NOAA.]
Yes, All My Rivers Are Lahureys
For the tiniest refuge,
these rivers stir. Hastily running night and day
despite jungle and hills
Finding a place of rest
where their whole self can stay,
there, to calmly abide,
their restless waves asleep
But, in my land, (harbored and held
by mountains and icy peaks)
there is no place
to remain
Cruel hills and steep
cliffs pushing down, allow no rest,
banishing all to the lowlands
Forced out of their native realm
for a foreign land
So, rubbing earthly dust onto their chests,
they leave their own place
weeping,
weeping,
exhausted in the ocean of sacrifice
for no end,
for nothing at all
[The above photo is an image of the Ganges River Delta in India taken by a NASA Landsat-7 satellite.]
Translations of the poems of Purna Vaidya on this page were graciously provided by Wayne Amtzis.
Wayne Amtzis was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1947 and grew up in Staten Island, New York. He studied at Syracuse University and UC Berkeley and received his masters in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. He has lived and worked in Asia since 1976 and his writing has appeared internationally and in Nepali translation. He is co-translator from the Nepali of Two Sisters: the poetry of Benju Sharma and Manju Kanchuli and of From The Lake, Love: the poetry of Banira Giri. His photos of Kathmandu appear in the collection flatLine witness and a book-length series of his poems and photos has been published in Studies in Nepali History and Society Vol. 6. 1, June 2001. He is currently working with the poet Purna Vaidya on translations from Nepal Bhasa. A long-time student of His Holiness Penor Rinpoche and Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, he has been teaching meditation under the guidance of Tsoknyi Rinpoche in Kathmandu, Nepal since 1996.
Library of Congress – New Delhi Office
South Asian Literacy Recording Project
Recordings of Purna Vaidya reciting excerpts from his collection of poems, La La Kha (Water is Water), in his language of Nepal Bhasa are available on the Library of Congress Website.
“Lah va khah”
“Chagu bankii luyeta”
“Lakham rangayata nhyabbai”
“Bhaybyu lah nhayathay nam vayefu”