I Won't Let You Go (36 page)

That fire of music you ignited in me –

how its flames have reached out everywhere!

All around me on branches of dead trees

tarum tarum it dances in rhythmic beats

and stretches its hands skyward to someone above.

The stars are stunned. They look on in the darkness.

And from somewhere a mad wind charges at us. 

See: in the midnight’s bosom this immaculate

lotus unfolding its petals – so aureate –

this fire –

who knows its power?

Not just your words,

o my friend, my beloved,

please give my spirit

your touch as well at times!

My long day’s thirst,

long journey’s weariness

I can’t figure out

how to slake or alleviate:

assure me, please, that this darkness

is filled with you!

My heart doesn’t just want to take,

it also longs to give!

It toils and trudges,

carrying all it’s hoarded.

Extend your hand

and place it, please, in mine –

let me hold it, let me fill it,

let me keep it with me

to charge my lonely wayfaring

with beauty!

There’s no end to it,

so who’s to say the last word?

What came as a blow 

will later glow as a fire.

When clouds have had their show,

rain will pour.

When snow has piled,

it’ll melt into a river.

What comes to an end

ends only to the eyes,

walks through the door of darkness

into light.

Bursting the heart of the old,

the new will of itself unfold.

When life’s flowering’s over,

death’s fruits will appear.

I shall not beguile you with my beauty,

I shall beguile you with my love.

I shall not open the door with my hand,

but with my song I shall make it come open.

I shall not load you with the weight of jewels,

nor cover you with chains of flowers.

My tenderness will be the garland

which I shall swing from your throat.

No one will know what typhoon it is

that makes waves heave within you.

Like a moon by invisible pull

I shall raise the tide.

I couldn’t keep them in the golden cage –

my days, my many-coloured days.

They couldn’t take it – the bondage of laughter and tears –

my days, my many-coloured days.

The language of my heart’s very own songs

they might pick up: even such was my hope.

But they flew away before learning all the words –

my days, my many-coloured days.

Now I dream that expecting someone there,

they hop around that broken cage of mine –

my days, my many-coloured days.

So much feeling – could it have been in vain?

Were they all made of shadows – those birds?

Did they take nothing at all with them to the skies –

my days, my many-coloured days?

A fire of flowers has hit the blue horizon.

A flame of fragrance in springtime has risen.

The sky is cozened,

thinks the sun’s there imprisoned.

Perhaps in the earth it seeks its consummation

and so as flowers in a mustard-field has risen.

It is my ache that’s hit the blue horizon.

What I’ve wished to say for years has risen.

From some lost Phagun of mine a gusty wind

has returned with its unreason.

This Phagun, maybe, it seeks its consummation

and so as waves in a mustard-field has risen.

Tonight the fire-flames burn in a million stars

    beneath a sky without sleep.

That grand marquee of heaven, drunk on light –

    there was I once a guest, in another age.

But my mind –

my mind wouldn’t settle there.

So I sailed away across the ocean of time

    beneath a sky without sleep.

Such dulcet whispers between land and water

    in this green earth of ours.

    Floral pigments dappling the grass,

    light and darkness in their sylvan clasp.

I liked it here –

yes, I liked it so much here

that I thought I’d stay

and spend my days in play

    in this green earth of ours.

Lest he goes without telling me,

my eyes can’t go to sleep.

I stay near him as best I may,

yet an ache won’t leave.

The farer who by his faring’s error

has hit upon my heart’s border

may have his error’s spell broken

and go off upstream.

When he came, he

came by snapping my bolts.

He may run off

through the same open door.

The maniac that may rise in him,

stirred by a capricious wind, 

may well not, so late in the day,

be barred by appeals.

Come to the kadamba grove, under the shady trees,

come bathe in the showers of the new monsoon!

Let your dark black tresses hang down;

drape your body in a cloud-blue dress.

Kohl in your eyes, a jasmine-chain round your neck,

come to the kadamba grove, under the shady trees!

Friend, let a smile flash from time to time

in your lips and eyes!

Let your honeyed voice sing a song in raga Mallar,

giving shape to the forest’s murmur.

In the dense downpour, in the gurgling of water,

come to the kadamba grove, under the shady trees!

Lost to myself,

I’m feeling so high,

waiting for you to come.

Cup-bearer, won’t you

keep filling my cup?

This stream of juice,

nectar-filtered,

with a hint of musk,

sends its bouquet

along the wind and 

maddens me from a distance.

Look at me, love,

with your own hands’ favour

just for a night

make me immortal.

Many are the flowers

that blow in Nandan.

Rare, rare is

such enchantment.

Where else could one

discover such fragrance?

So many times I’ve been along this trail

and never once lost my way.

Are its traces lost today?

Has the wild grass covered it all?

Still, in my mind I know there’s nothing to fear,

for a wind in my favour suddenly begins to blow.

I shall surely know you – the time will come –

for you know me.

Lamp in hand, I used to go alone.

Its flame’s gone out.

Yet in my mind I know the address is written

in the language of the stars.

The wayside flowers,

I know, will check my errors

and guide me gently

by their scents’ secret codes.

Shiuli flower! Shiuli flower!

What an error! Such an error!

By what sleight

did the breeze of night

bring you here

to the forest shade?

No sooner it’s dawn

than you want to return.

Every day’s the same.

Why such longing?

There’s dew in your eyes.

What’s the idiom

of your goodbyes?

And your scent –

what does it portend?

Ah, away they go –

minute by minute

heaps and heaps

of bokuls also.

The two of us had swung in the forest that day,

    swing-ropes twined with chains of flowers.

Recall it, please, from time to time!

    Never forget it, never!

That day the wind was laced, you know,

    with my mind’s delirious chatter,

and in the heavens, scattered in plenty,

    were similes of your laughter.

As we walked along the path that evening,

    the full moon rose in all its lustre.

Ah, what a splendid hour it was

    when you and I met together!

Now I have no time of my own.

    I’m far from you and must bear it alone.

But the friendship’s thread I tied to your heart –

    never untie it, never!

The moon’s laughter’s dam has burst:

light spills out.

Tuberose, pour your odour.

The crazy wind – he can’t make out

who calls him and whence;

whomever he visits in the flower-garden

he fancies straight away, he does.

Sandal smothers the blue sky’s forehead

and Saraswati’s swans have escaped.

Moon, what d’you think you’re doing,

strewing the earth with all this parijat pollen?

Which of you women in Indra’s heaven

have lit yourself this nuptial lamp?

House-bound men, open your doors.

It’s swinging time.

In land and water and sylvan spots 

it’s swinging time.

Open your doors.

Red is the laughter piled in polash, ashok.

A red drunkenness marks the morning clouds.

The new-born leaves are tinged with ripples of red.

The south wind makes the bamboos murmur.

Butterflies dangle from tall grass-stalks.

The bee is after the flowers’ bounty,

playing on its wings its busker’s vina.

In the madhabi arbour the wind is fragrance-drugged.

Where does the road end? What’s at the end of the road?

Desires, our labours’ prayers: where do they go?

Up and down

roll the waves of weeping.

Ahead us

the deepest darkness falls.

In which country is the shore?

In this trail of a mirage –

it seems to me –

thirst may not end,

and that’s the fear that clings.

Pain, helmless,

its sails ripped to shreds,

drifts nowhere.

In the dead of night you brought me devastation.

What your feet broke was also blessed by them.

I’ll thread the pieces in a chain of blood-red stones.

On my breast they’ll hang and heave with hidden sadness.

You took a sitar on your lap and slid between notes,

pulled the strings sideways so cruelly that they broke.

You left it behind on the ground.

Its silenced song, I know, is your gift to me,

riding the Phalgun winds in phantom ascents and descents.