What Dies In Spring Poem by Padma Devkota

A seed on fallow ground, a fresh sapling
caught between jumbo roots of spreading trees,
a jaundiced leaf that hangs loose on a bough,
a bud in unkempt garden invaded by weeds

Pigeons that fall prey to catapults,
fish to bait, worms to hungry beaks,
deer to crouching tigers and young chicks
to falcons hovering in the insensitive sky

Lambs tied to a lamppost just outside
the butcher's stall, chicken bunched together
head down from handlebars of bicycles,
she-buffaloes loaded in the momo-trucks

Orphans outside closed shutters,
beggars in parks, pavements, shanties,
the sick that cannot buy life and health,
the terminally ill who are far better off

because their hope is already dead,
unlike that of the visionary young who die
to bring a deathless spring to earth, -
failing which, they take a sweet rebirth.