Forests are quietly green
Waters glide to the fields,
The scarecrow stands guard over the crops.

In me is buried a whole city
The park, its benches and the temple
A noisy procession, too
The chaos is weighed down.
Riding the melody on a sitar,
I long to journey to a land of calm
I desire to swim along a river
And land on a lonely stone that shines.

Out of the sores of the earth
Pus seeps into my tea cup.
Skeletons scream out of newspapers,
A rickety bus hurls me
Towards my office at ten
(Time, accounts of an inept clerk)
And home, comes there clamouring in.

To erase one chaos I search for another.
To forget one chaos
The chaos in me craves for another.
One chaos overwhelms another
And is overwhelmed by another chaos
Ever bustling, scuffling, playful.

In the midst of chaos
Chaos itself sits quiet.

Translated from the Nepali by Dorjee Lepcha