Translation: Piya Tora Kaisa Abhiman (Hariharan)

Beloved, what pride is this of yours?

Encumbered clouds have brought the Monsoon,

and the blossoming of Kadam flowers.

From Mathura, four Kahaars have brought the palanquin.

(But)

(He) Didn't come, didn't come:

The deeply colored,

Saffron-skinned; lover of mine

(Didn't come)

My courtyard is left silent and mundane, deserted.

Beloved, what pride is this of yours?

(That causes you to do this?) 

You have shed and let flow water from your own eyes, 

You made for yourself: your very own river Jamuna, thus.

And bathed in it a hundred thousand times.

Still, your bath just doesn't finish; 

(it seems purposeless)

(Even at the end) 

Dry hair, an unkempt facade

Heart lifeless.

(Your sins will never be washed away)

Beloved, what pride is this of yours?

I beseech you friend, 

Tell me, why should I dress up?

No more do I want to wear bangles or necklaces.

(I want only to)

Only cover my body with sandalwood,

Sandalwood is akin poison. 

Windowpanes

My secret window stands without a wall.

It shows me the only world I know, 

The only world I've barely discovered. 

Blue bird whisper to me softly,

A new story or three everyday. 

Old women are mocked endlessly, 

I'm a scapegoat in my teens

Because I learned what you taught me. 

Secret window, where's your wall? 

The curtains only move to reveal all I know,

The same that I've barely even discovered.

A world of people hurt, and hurt for pleasure. 

A world of chain smokers

And naysayers

And lives

I don't know how to save.

Forgone

We’re growing children of life. 

With silly pranks on the tips of our 

elongating fingers

and crocodile tears

In big eyes that our faces have still to match. 

You are a ray of sunshine and a beam of moonbright

I am a glittering waft of perfume that blows through

you like a summertime song. 

We’ve loved with hearts that are growing into love

and taken and given and hidden and sought. 

But honey cannot be turned into 

the bitterness of neem. 

I cannot carry hate in my heart 

Or anger in the trembling of my neck

Right under my ears 

In the back, 

Where my eyes are not. 

For we look towards tomorrows. 

And we are children that must know happiness 

It is what has built our bodies

And it is the food we give our hearts. 

I am a growing child. I am feeling things

for the first time. 

I am also a spring that surprises you on a walk

To a mountain 

that is aflame with the rising sun

And flows and bends and knows

That mountains can be carved. 

I learn from my heart. 

Let us be the bees and flowers who kiss

And grow and spread

And live through one another.

We are young and there is time

to take root in an orchard 

Where we will find the trees we want to take root by

When we learn how to share the sunlight. 

Let us be the bees and flowers who are friends

And carry love with us

For it is not physics

(Who was once a man to me) 

And is allowed 

To make our burdens lighter.  

Nightingale/Rebounding

You're beautiful in the night.

A glowworm nest broke on the ceiling,

I'm mesmerized and 

Falling again.

Banks are closed in the night,

The streets are empty,

Taxi rides are quick and then 

I'm with you.

Fleeting

Unsure

Scared

We say these too much:

Lovers sing of joy and smiles

Of certainty and the bright

Of the day's morningsong.

We are creatures of the frigid night-

Nightbird, you have a prettier call

Pity it's so deceptive.

We are in a freezer right now,

Frozen into each other for better or worse,

Summer will come and we will

Defrost and flow

And know 

If or not we come from separate shores.

For now nightbird, fly to me and sing.

Let me brush away your tears and fears,

With my tongue and fingertips

I am a smooth talker,

You are a night of bliss.

You're a blanket.

The night is snowy cold.

I want the whole world to know:

I'm falling again.

The lips of death give frosty nighttime kisses.

We're never going to fly to the Caribbean.

Because nightbirds,

Don't fly into the sun.

Except for

When they do.

I wonder with ifs

Hope that skips

In a 

Summersea heart.

Will you?