Monday, February 10, 2014

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. 

Saturday, February 8, 2014

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?