I Won't Let You Go (13 page)

Loaded with millions and millions of minute deaths,

    this globe careers in the sky.

    Death laughs and plays around it.

    A death-track is this earth.

    It’s a world of death.

Should only the present be called life –

    just an instant, a wink?

On its back sits the dead weight of the past –

    who knows where that ends?

I’ve been dead as many years as I’ve lived

    and every moment I’m dying.

Living deaths, we live in death’s own house,

    ignorant of its meaning.

Life: is it then a name for a handful of deaths –

    an aggregate of dyings?

Then a moment’s a cluster of a hundred trivial deaths –

    so much fuss over a naming!

As death grows, so will life:

    minute by minute we shall ascend the sky

    to the very dwelling of starlight.

As death grows, we shall walk far:

    life’s scope will expand.

Within life’s vastness stars and planets will

    frolic here and there.

My life will rise, traversing so many skies,

    cover moons and suns,

gain new kingdoms as the ages pass,

    netting the latest stars.

    Oh, when will that day come

    when I may ascend that skyey path

    and tie with my death’s filament

    one world and another!

    Our death-mesh we shall spread

    and enclose the world,

    entirely encircle

    this endless sea of sky.

Victory, victory to death!

    Endless death is our lot.

    Death will never die.

Little children of this century, we

    seek your protection, death!

Come to us, take us in your arms,

    give us your breast-milk

    and all the nurturing we need.

We are filled with joy as we behold

    death’s endless carnival.

Someone has invited us to this grand

    and noisy party!

Child, don’t you know who calls you lovingly?

    Why this fear?

Death’s just another name for what you call life,

    not an alien at all.

    Why then, come and embrace her!

    Come and hold her hand!

Truly, we have the sacred Sumeru here,

that golden mountain, dalliance-land of gods.

The high breasts of this virtuous lady light

with rays of heaven the earth, man’s mortal lot.

From there the infant sun rises at dawn

and there in the evening, exhausted, he sinks.

At night a deity’s irises keep watch

on two secluded unpolluted peaks.

A nectar-flow from love’s perennial source

wets the thirsty lips of the universe.

Sustenance without end for a weakly world

for ever wakes on a serenely sleeping earth.

Man, the child of gods, has a motherland

which is on this very earth, but kisses heaven.

Lips’ language to lips’ ears.

Two drinking each other’s heart, it seems.

Two roving loves who have left home,

pilgrims to the confluence of lips.

Two waves rise by the law of love

to break and die on two sets of lips.

Two wild desires craving each other

meet at last at the body’s limits.

Love’s writing a song in dainty letters,

layers of kiss-calligraphy on lips.

Plucking flowers from two sets of lips

perhaps to thread them into a chain later.

This sweet union of lips

is the red marriage-bed of a pair of smiles.

A fast damp wind blows sharply from the east,

sweeping dark-blue clouds on the sunrise-path.

Far off, on the Ganga – not a boat! – the sand drifts.

I sit and wonder: who’s where today!

Withered leaves are blown on empty paths.

From a distance comes the woodland’s mad commotion.

The morning birds are silent. Their nests shake.

I think continually: where is she today?

Ah, how long she was near me, and I said nothing!

And the days went by, one after another.

Laughter and jokes, throwing words at each other:

within them lurked the heart’s intended hints.

If I could have her by me today, I feel

I could tell her all I wanted to say.

Clouds would cast dark shadows across my words

and the wind would lend its wildness to my breath.

From afar it would gather – the stillness before a storm.

Clouds, woods, riverbanks – all would merge into one.

Her loose hair would cascade over her face

and her eyes would hold back the dewy drops.

Speeches most solemn, covering life and death,

inner longing, like the forest’s uproar,

vital throbbing – from here to hereafter,

hymns of grandeur, high effusive hopes,

huge sadness-shadows, deep absence-pangs,

restless desires, locked up, heart-concealed,

half-formed whispers, not for elaboration,

would fill the solitude like clouds heaped on clouds.

As at the end of day, in midnight’s mansion

the universe displays its planets and stars,

so in my heart, freed from laughter and jests,

she would perceive infinity’s outburst.

The noise, the games, the merriment would be below;

the spirit’s tranquil sky would soar above.

In light you see but the gambolling of a moment;

in darkness alone am I myself without end.

How small I was when she left me and went away!

How small that farewell, spoken with trivial words!

I neither showed her imagination’s true realm,

nor made her sit in my soul’s dark solitude.

If in such privacy, stillness, grand ambience

two minds could spend an eternal night together –

in the sky no laughter, no sound, no sense of direction,

just four loving eyes waking like four stars!

No weariness, no satiety, no road-blocks:

life expanding from one world to the next!

From the strings of twin spirits in full unison

a duet would rise to the throne of the limitless.

The night after full moon. Early in the evening

the pale moon rose in a corner of the sky.

The small boat, quivering, sped with a billowing sail,

as on time’s stream glides

an idle thought in a mind half-awake.

One bank, high and jagged, cast a shadow.

The other sloped and merged

with white sand, looking the same in moonlight.

Below the banks in lazy languor flowed

Ganga – slim, sluggish in Baishakh.

The wind blew from the east, my home’s direction,

like the sighing of distant relatives who missed me.

Before my waking eyes sometimes the moon,

sometimes a loved face drifted.

One half of me was wistful, the other half elated.

Dense orchards of mango appeared on the north bank.

They looked unreal, like remembered groves.

Bank, tree, hut, path – sketched on moonlight’s scroll –

and sky, reflected in water,

like the image of a far-off magical world.

Eyes shut, dream-immersed, I imagined

a swan gliding along the boundless sky:

upheaval of large white wings in moonlight,

myself stretched on its back, on a downy ride.

Sleep crept on me like a pleasurable death.

There were no hours, nor night-watchmen to call them.

Night without end, disconnected from day.

In the hushed, deserted world only the waves,

the murmuring waters softly lapped my ears –

sea of sleep dream-ruffled.

Ages passed – I couldn’t count how many.

Like a lamp without oil, the universe began to flutter.

A giant shadow swallowed the firmament,

and with head bowed, the universal night

began the countdown to death: three, two, one…

The moon began to wane, to disappear.

The liquid murmur faded, fell silent.

All the stars, unflinching, like ghosts’ eyes

without mercy fixed themselves on me,

the only creature in the entire heavens.

Through that long night the billions of stars

slowly went out, one after another.

I opened my eyes wide, but received no light.

Ice-hard, death-chill, that darkness

couldn’t pierce my irises.

Numbed, then, the bird-wings started to droop.

The long neck plunged. The swan began to descend.

For ten thousand years the deafening sound of a fall

struck my ear-drums. The horrendous

gaping night split into two.

Suddenly all the memories of my life

woke for a moment, and in a flash sped

ahead of me, crashing to a thousand pieces.

The hottest chase I gave them, but couldn’t retrieve

a particle from that debacle, alas.

Nowhere could I rest this body of mine,

wholly wearied by my own iron weight.

I wanted to cry, but found neither breath nor voice,

my throat choked by darkness:

solely within me it was happening – the cosmic collapse.

The fierce velocity made me long and thin

like the shrill whistle of a swift hurricane.

Sharp as an arrow, as fine as a needle’s tip,

piercing infinite time’s breast I went,

my body and mind merged, reduced to a line.

Gradually the limits of time dissolved.

An instant and eternity became one.

The ocean of empty space shrank to a point

of the deepest, the most ultimate blackness.

I was swallowed by that ocean of a point.

The dark lost its darkness. There was none called ‘I’,

yet in a curious way it seemed there was.

Awareness, gagged, blind beneath unawareness,

waited for someone or something, like a life-breath

lingering eternally after death.

I opened my eyes. Ganga flowed as before,

and my boat was speeding westward to its mooring.

Faint lamps flickered in cottages on the bank,

and above, the moon was as honey-faced as ever.

The earth kept her vigil, creatures asleep on her lap.

The Wedding Night

GROOM
.   Life to life    when first united

                    brings a peerless pleasure.

              Forget all else!    With lifted eyes

                    let’s just gaze at each other.

              Heart to heart    in shy confusion

                    in one spot joined together,

              drugged by the same    fascination, let’s

                    suck honey from the same flower.

              I’m but ashes,    ’cause since I was born

                    I’ve simply been on fire;

              but your ocean    of love is boundless;

                    burning, I’ve come for water.

              Just say this once,    ‘I too am yours

                    and truly desire none other.’

              What? Sweetheart?    Wherefore do you rise?

BRIDE
.           I want to sleep with my Nan. [
She cries.
] 

A Few Days Later

GROOM
.   Sweetest love,    forlorn in a corner,

                    wherefore all this weeping?

              Has the morning lost    its morning star?

                    Are these its dewdrops peeping?

              Has the spring gone?    And is that why

                    the forest goddess is wailing?

              Is wild memory    sitting on the grave

                    of buried hope, complaining?

              Or is a meteor    missing its home,

                    the blue sky, which it’s mourning?

              Why these tears?

BRIDE
.                       For my pussy-cat

                    left at home, I’m crying. 

In the Back Garden

GROOM
.   Lighting up this space beneath a tree,

                    what are you doing in the forest greensward?

              Look at these locks    brushing your soft cheeks!

                    Aren’t they wily? Aren’t they wayward?

              Look at this stream    curling at your feet:

                    as it flows, it seems to weep.

              All day long    you’re listening to its song:

                    tell me, isn’t it lulling you to sleep?

              Fallen flowers    heaped on your cloth-end,

                    sad and neglected: what a shame!

              Remembering someone’s    face, did you

                    make mistakes as you tried to thread ’em?

              The breeze that blows,    swaying your ear-rings,

                    of whom does it whisper in your ears?

              The busy bees    with their specious buzzing –

                    whose name do they murmur? Can you hear?

              Your eyes are smiling,    your memories happy

                    in this deliciously private grove.

              What are you doing    in this arbour, this alcove?

BRIDE
.           Sitting and eating some juicy jujubes.

GROOM
.   I’ve come to you    to tell you all

                    that’s pent up in my wretched mind.

              Weary of its own    weight, this heart

                    can nowhere any comfort find.

              My mind’s a-flutter    with
je ne sais quoi

                    in this honeyed springtime.

              Recklessly    does the wind entreat

                    the malati buds to open.

              Ah, those eyes –    they look toward me –

                    a message of hope is being expressed!

              And that heart bursts,    a love escapes,

                    half-nervous, half-embarrassed.

              Day and night    my soul is awake

                    only for your sake;

              wants to give its all    in your service,

                    from you its commands to take.

              My life, my youth –    everything I’ll risk,

                    plunder the world to fetch you a gift.

              Sweetheart, tell me –    what can I fix?

BRIDE
.          Get me more jujubes, – say, another six.

GROOM
.   Well then, friend,    let me depart

                    with a life vacant, despondent.

              Might you shed    but one tear-drop

                    for me when I am absent? 

              The spring breeze    with its magic breath

                    may well set your heart on fire

              and resurrect    within your breast

                    slumbering desires.

              Doleful girl    in this lonely woodland,

                    what will you do, my darling?

              How will you spend    your time when I’m gone?

BRIDE
.           I’ll arrange a dolls’ wedding.