Accounting

 Shubhra, how do you manage it so perfectly,
 ferrying that very you inside yourself across.
 You keep desire alive moment to moment, just as it comes,
 while in your intoxication my hope, trying to live, dies again and again.
 Your living, my dying—both weep trapped in false hope's frown.
 I watch in wonder, what magic enchants you so sweetly!
 Here I am and we are,
 There you are and you all are—
 leagues between us; winning, losing!
 This is good, that is good,
 everything's good, whatever one believes.
  
 Why is this so? Listen to what I say...
 Your sky changes color with each whim, in each gap,
 in countless hues, countless ways.
 My sky, terribly old—one color only, one way only;
 drunk on one color, what taste for others?
 I don't understand such modern fashion, how love's manner works.
 Life passes in one color alone, at such a time—
 suddenly meeting you!
 Your world, your sky—home to many colors.
 My place there is small indeed,
 nothing particularly special about me.
 I didn't understand all this before.
 I live in your colors,
 whatever little reaches my eyes,
 you revel in countless hues,
 drop masks with countless companions,
 your Holi is my worship,
 your game is my punishment,
 the color count a tangled riddle,
 my obstacle on your path,
 when I hold everything together around you,
 then you fly your kite on another string.
 I was lost in dreams of you,
 you too were lost indeed—searching for new homes, new quests.
 Your living—in the busy crowd of a thousand tasks,
 my living—around dreams of your happiness,
 in this difference we became different, lost our common tune.
  
 The window open, rainbow slips in
 to your room.
 Seven-colored dreams dazzle your eyes, scatter brilliance!
 My courtyard, measured by your scale,
 smears itself with evening's vermillion
 in soft sunlight's gentle shadow.
 The color that keeps dreams alive,
 when that very color fades,
 what will sustain life?
 Your window stays open
 while mine closes.
 In your mind the procession of colors walks on,
 I am part of that procession, nothing more.
  
 You all think,
 those living wonderfully in dreams of one color
 should be forbidden to open their windows.
 One world will suffer,
 one lifetime will take sorrow,
 laughing at their pain you'll gather happiness,
 their fate is just this way,
 birth's debt calls death with that very gesture.
 In love of one color alone,
 how much joy there is, you never knew—alas, you all!
 One color fills the heart—
 let it live, let it grow, let it play, let it dance,
 let it enchant me as it pleases.
 The peace of love—when will you understand?
  
 That color of mine—so precious; let it be white in your eyes,
 where is that color among your eyes' thousand hues?
 This very deception remains to be understood! What kind of clever are you?
 Your interest in keeping me in your mind is not so great,
 I don't have time enough in my hands to forget you.
 You are busy—forgetting me easily, in easy ways you color life with other hues,
 I am busy—nurturing your memory in my mind, stealing time in your enchantment.
  
 Your rules, your living
 the more I see, the more I understand.
 This much I know—you are well!
 If this is being well,
 I want terribly
 for life to pass in badness alone.
 The accounts are strict, unbreakable reckonings save self-interest,
 alas, yet—
 love itself sells and squanders!