Today, let me be a bird. Let all of life's resentment or its cries rest upon my wings.
Today let me rather be song, drifting in the ocean of melody, from which there may be no road home.
Today let me try being a piece of cloud, let poet or farmer restless with the joy of seeing me. I'll fall as rain, and in that waiting let old stories gather round teacups.
Today let me be love, what say? Let hearts flutter, let voices tremble saying that first hello on the phone, let the voice grow slow with excitement.
Today I want to be a thirteen-page letter. The bakul flowers hidden between book leaves I'll scatter carefully across each page of the letter. Let the letters go deaf to love's terrible words, let only longing cling to them.
Today let me rather be a cup of strong liquor-colored tea. Let the tea's color reveal itself as the color of my heart. Today let my eyes meet my soul.
Today I'll be the tenderness of two eyes. In tears' name, streaming down cheeks, that tenderness will lighten the heart. It will bind me, bind my present with all the power of tenderness.
Today let me rather be blood. Let me be known by the name of farmer or worker.
Today let me be Samaresh's Dipabali, make the rules strong as a strong spine. Let me have the courage to call truth truth, let me crush falsehood by calling it false.
Or perhaps in my heart I want to become Jayita. Even hiding myself behind a man's guise, let that womanhood find its fulfillment in motherhood.