Feet of Mountains and other poems by Kamal Jeet Choudhary

Tell me one thing
How do you unearth
A squirrel in yourself
When I am hiding a groundnut
Inside the roots of my being
Tell me one thing
How come you seek
A butterfly in yourself
When it seems pathless
to explore flowers and
trace their changing colours
Tell me one thing
How do you find
a little girl within
when I want to sing
lullabies to the Earth,
cradling it in my lap
Tell me one thing
how do you discover
a cat in yourself
when the mice of my fear
race in my room
How do you stream a
brook in yourself
whenever I want to station myself
as a tree on a shore
or as a stone deep within a trench
How do you find within yourself
a bunch of axes
when inside my chest
grows thick bushes of worries
Tell me one thing
Why don't you tell me anything?

(Translated from the Hindi by Sandeep Rawat)

This time about
Spring has arrived
Carrying a gun on its shoulders
Crushing the flowers beneath its steps
This time about
cotton shall be cultivated
Not for the spinning wheel
Not for the lamp wicks
But rather for dressing the wounds.

(Translated from the Hindi by Sandeep Rawat)

Whoever crafted the lock
also forged the key
Whoever built walls
also carved a window
Whoever drew axes
also charted journeys
Whoever formed the Earth and air
also sculpted the bird that soars
after bathing in the sunlit waters
Whoever made the gun,
what else did they devise?

(Translated from the Hindi by Shivam Tomar)

A girl from the bustling city of elevators
whispered into the ear of the mountains
I have come not to cause explosions in your life
but to adorn you with Mehendi
Listening to this
A mountain lets go of a big rock
from its cavern
and extends its feet
The mountains were seeing human hands
for the first time, And for the first time,
someone saw the mountains' feet.
(Translated from the Hindi by Shivam Tomar)

It has scenes of farms, streets,
and canals, with mangoes
swaying from trees.
A stone is taking a beautiful flight,
while a girl is watching with anticipation,
holding salt in her hands.
One boy is climbing the tree,
and another is aiming with a slingshot.
In its sight, heads wearing crowns are appearing,
and their crowns are falling.
(Translated from the Hindi by Shivam Tomar)