Mountain Child
The mountain child —
a fragment of the mountain —
plays in the lap of the mountain
Toddling up the mountain
he plants his feet in the mountain soil
to rise like a mountain
in the land of mountains
The whole mountain
lives inside the mountain child
And in the lap of the mountain
lives the scurrying mountain child
The mountain child sees
a plane flying over the mountain
And he asks his father —
What is that bird?
The literal translation of this poem was made by Lucy Rosenstein
The final translated version of the poem is by The Poetry Translation Workshop
Notes
The poem we translated had already been translated from Santali to Hindi - it was the first time we had translated a translated poem. It was a very interesting process, and we hope to work with Sukrita Paul Kumar again in the future.
© Poetry Translation Centre 2004-2012
Leslie Sloane says:
In my thoughts, this is a beautiful poem reflecting the beginning journey of the joyful child who wishes to play, discover, and seek that which he/she sees beyond the veil from birth, and can now move about to discover in the physical world.
It is the joining of the Heavens, which are present with the Mountain Child, weaving them in with the energies of the grounded and powerful mountain from which the physical strength is drawn, as the mountain itself holds the child safe
Then, the wonderousness reveals itself through a magical question.
Beautiful!!!
Nirmala was introduced to me by a friend, and I am very honoured to read her words of Love/Wisdom.
Sincerely,
Leslie Sloane