VISHNUPRIYA

Eye-light gone at dawn! Flowers
gazing into lakes, striving to pick
these, we forget how to swim. Newborn
faeries of the seas sweet-talk us into their
land where a river issuing from every
fiber is there for us to swim. But
we forget to. Oh, eye-light gone at
dawn! Rays of the sun slide off your
brow endowing us with darkness. Faeries
dupe us in that land where issuing from each fiber
is a river for us to swim.

In which cell of your
body are we imprisoned
Oh Hariraka! gone at dusk! Where every
night the stench of tigers wafts
up from the bed and restive in this
cell pacing up and down we
count ourselves once, twice,
a hundred times. Oh Hariraka, gone at
dusk! A sign of your abhisara each
day and we are caught in this
cell and when your body gives off this scent
how restive we
grow on islands of coral letting insects
feast on our bodies! Every night at
the signal of a hundred guards at the door
we forget how to
swim in which cell of your
body. Oh Hariraka!

Vishnupriya of midnight, the stones of these
hills resound with your breasts. A world
a little heavier, more substantial than
dream, leans on a memory dozing
in a cave where roars of
sound approach like a hare leaping
over unequal empty spaces.
Where springs flow
on in milk-white intensity, serpents
coil round your sandalwood
feet whose poison inhabits every sinew of my
body. Animals bewitched in the
wilds of your body have the power to
scale your heights, descend into your
depths – my body is their
dream, my soul their food.

Oh Vishnupriya, we, wounded by the growling of
tigers, toss about in those
rivers that have blinded us with their
milk-white intensity in the land of the faeries at the
signals of guards every day we are
caught in the prison of
your body letting the sea-
creatures feast on these bodies of ours…..

INABILITY

Seeing you off at the edge of the city leaving forest trees behind
wandering about in neighborhoods of an entirely different city, on the streets
inventing the forgotten city in the layers of my mind , all over again

Building new houses, new quarrels, doors and streets all new
I think I have been leaving empty spaces in between

When I go back there one day I see – in an empty patch
someone has dug a hole in the ground and in the rain
children of the neighborhood could drown there
I grieve that I can’t quite invent
the city in the same way –
in every attempt some patches remain empty
where just anyone could come and dig a hole
            let thorns grow

Let It Burn

Don’t stop it, let it be spun
      Let the silk worm go on weaving
      Let this silky world
spread all around

In the earliest watch of the daylight hours
      Let the yellow sunlight of winter
      heat up
      Let your household
simmer.

Let the squirrels come and nibble
      every flower and fruit
Let the sparrows
      peck at nut and seed
in the courtyard
      Let the mouse chew on each moment
of the thread of life.

Let dreams be made real, in the drowsy world
Let all their ventures turn to gold

Even before ripening, mustard
      will crack open
      and be strewn/scatter all over the earth
Even the rain, daydreaming
will bring back the green to the leaves.

Without even opening the door spring will pass by
            Autumn arrive on the scene
Only the veined shapes of moth-eaten mulberry leaves
            will rest on the earth.

A happy pyre
            will present itself
            suddenly, at the right hour
Sunflower-like the smokeless flames
      will fill the void
Breaking open the bound caterpillar
the seven-colored butterfly
      will take flight
having found the sky.

Let it weave
      let the worm weave
      its silky universe
      Let the yellow sunlight of winter
      heat up
Let your household
simmer.

THE FIFTH DAY*

This moon
      that
      has been hung
      upside down
      in the sky
These necklaces
      silvery
      round the neck
Diamond specks sparkle
      in these eyes
      pictures of mine
      thousands
                  take form

This moon
      (that) …

This frost
      has been spreading
      has been dissolving
            each place each picture
      in its own image
            into itself
but for these trees
            on the roadside
in which every dream
is overcast
divided
capturing
every single object
deluding you
even in your own familiar world

The fish in the night
go crawling
on the streets

If the vixen
      didn’t have a lair
      she too would fall asleep
      right here for the whole night

There are clowns there too
      where even forlornness
      beat its wings

The pendulum-clock
      dong dong
      told twelve
Near our feet
      scattered bits of broken glass
keep us wandering
keep tempting us to stray
      into who knows what meanings
Even donkeys smile at the discovery
The moon’s
      glaze
      thick
      still there

The whole night our road lay straight
we kept wandering around in the light
circling right back to the same spot

The light on the street
            more silvery
            than the moon

The moon
      hung there
            in the night
            upside down
by whom?

* Of the lunar month

JARATKARU

They left in the night on their horses
We who saw them off to the edge of the village, lanterns in hand
We returned
Listening to the retreating clatter of hooves
fading into the distance, for a long time; we fell asleep
exhausted, then for the rest of the night we
dreamt our odd dreams.

Our journey circled around a small island, searching for a lake
where we could cup sweet water in our hands and drink
The edges of our weapons
blunted, that on some ancient whetstone we might hone; our horses
needing green expanses they could graze

Why, at the end of the day, were we so weary
We had not made any distant journeys at all

All our ancestors lay suspended, clinging onto banyan roots tied to their feet
the weight of boulders, their supporting lifelines.

(Translated from the Hindi by Teji Grover and Arlene Zide.)