In Search of Lost Hopes

Child, open your bag,
Let me see your book!
Those black patches may mean a lot,
Still in these pent-up days.
Yes, I pined for knowledge,
But, when there was time,
Never saw school and college.

Days passed. I’m old:
‘No school for you,’ they told;
That was the time I had wept
For my fading years
That made me ‘old enough’ to run a house;
And cling to it for a life.

Little one, let me see your book!
Are there my dreams?
My hopes of those lost days?
Ah! With their revival today,
I’d see the world through your eyes;
All carefree, all tranquil, all golden—
Sans craving, sans fretting, sans cries.

[Published in Of Nepalese Clay]