THE ILLITERATE

 ILLITERATE

( LAXMI PRASAD DEVKOTA)

(1909 - 1959)

To think he has missed the sunshine of his day

        Is vegetable or less

Has the eye of daisy, the ear of the barley

        Is acephalous, God bless !

Must he dodo or mammoth or fossil the world?

        Lag behind our dog?

Still slave to the wind? Genuflector to 

        The snake in the drains in a fog?

How much does he weigh? A straw in the scale?

        Three cubits and a half of flesh?

O the torture of seeing such a man today!

         The myopia to the race!

The cob of the maze is a whiskered fellow 

          Wields a pair of blades

But the man has no sense of self-defence

           He is moonshine that fades.

The owl to the light of day, the cat,

           Whose pupil must shrink to light,

Me-seems to the land of the Limbo must go

            O manufacture their sight!

Vain throe of the childbirth bto the motherland

             To paint some black to the race.

God's image all lost! The monkey still green,

             O blot out or barber his face!