From the Forest of Fallen Leaves

 One day I'll leave behind this graceless night 
 and come to you.
 Clay-earth pressed to my chest,
 flowers will bloom in clusters upon clusters.
  
 Oh, she will come suddenly,
 on this very path, at some odd hour,
 blazing like light against the lamp's body,
 leaving scarlet footprints in her wake.
  
 Ah, girl! Better the earth than you!
 I'll become earth, yes, I'll become earth!
  
 When the known 
 becomes unknown 
 everything changes...
 Once upon a time
 such curiosity,
 so many words,
 endless time stretched before us...
  
 In that distant unknown of the mountains
 happiness gathers, as much as I imagine.
 Then why does life, for no reason,
 run ceaselessly on thorn-strewn paths,
 with bloodied body and weary mind
 only adding to infinite sorrow?
  
 Stone-crushed
 foolish grass-heart,
 even in its last breath
 seems to say:
 This is joy... this is joy indeed!
  
 Centuries later
 in some winter
 when cold freezes your voice away,
 let me know.
 I'll call you.
 Don't speak—
 at least you'll have one excuse!
 And look, I too will hold tight to this,
 no excuse, but living truth!
  
 You don't wish it,
 and my wishes
 won't let go.
 Neither you understand,
 nor I!
  
 Such is the way!
 Or perhaps it must be so!
  
 One year since 
 the last words....
 Two years since 
 the last glimpse....
 Still you call this love?
  
 Time's expanse reveals
 how vast the distance in relationships.
 And how bottomless the depth of feelinglessness!
  
 Listen...
 when will you have time?
 After I die?
 Don't come to the corpse that day,
 don't offer flowers.
 To a corpse—
 flowers or earth,
 both are the same!
  
 Who are you?
 There is no one called 'you'...
 Nothing at all...
  
 'You' are a gas balloon on a string—
 slipping from my grasp,
 lost in the empty sky, someone else entirely.
  
 You are not the string, nor the balloon,
 you are the gas inside,
 which remains beyond touch,
 untouchable, and departs!
  
 I remember so clearly!
 Swaying in the doubt of will and reluctance,
 perhaps merely honoring courtesy,
 you gave me those books!
 Buried your eyes in that same mobile and stayed put!
 With how many Juthi's you still chat
 just like before!
 Facebook status,
 expressions of laughter,
 everything remains as before.
  
 After feeding me a few spoonfuls,
 you made it very clear
 that this act of feeding
 was so extraordinary! Like the world had turned upside down!
  
 Why do you make your own actions seem so grand
 when the person beside you knows it all, yet doesn't accept it!
 And knowing this, it wasn't just the spoonful of food,
 but she wanted to devour the entire person, hands and all!
  
 You gave the restroom more time than you gave me,
 so I paid the bill, and when you asked "Why did you pay?"
 straight to the bookstore!
 You got lost in pointless chatter with the shopkeeper,
 I didn't get even a quarter of that!
 The phone rang! Work excuse! You left!
  
 Among all these things, where was I, can you tell?
 Give something from the heart, not from the wallet!
  
 In your knowing, in your understanding,
 if I were such, outwardly something special—
 in identity or build, in appearance or manner,
 would you still have acted so?
 I don't think so!
  
 Listen, boy, however small you think a person is,
 no person is ever that small! Never anyone!
  
 Knowing you've abandoned so much,
 if only this thought comes to mind,
 then know this: that knowing of the mind is utterly false!
  
 Love, for me,
 is above everything,
 everything below it!
 That's why I feel no shame in being shameless for love's sake!
  
 I do want to look into your eyes!
 But what's the way, tell me!
 I see your two eyes busy with the phone, constantly!
 If I snatched away that cellphone,
 held those two hands all the time,
 would you scold me terribly?
  
 Suppose I did hold them!
 You're not scolding, but very annoyed!
 What you don't want me to accept,
 my fondness that you don't find pleasant,
 I find comfort living with that! Does it make any sense?
  
 Two years since...
 first sight!
 I want to
 squeeze you to death in my embrace!
 Tie you up, stuff you in a sack and bring you home!
 I can only think such things, can't do them!
 Courtesy is such a rude outfit!
  
 The Juthi's at least
 have some name,
 while someone just
 lives in numbers!
 Do they really live? Or merely float?
 0 9 8 1 2 7—
 just specific arrangements... I know.
 When they get jumbled
 they disappear; they must disappear.
  
 In your November joy
 one day,
 I too will join!
 In some November
 I will surely lose you!
 You don't say it, but I understand,
 my intimate presence
 troubles you so!
  
 So in my emptiness
 I'll give you happiness in fullness.
 After that, I'll leave!
  
 I am well,
 yet in many ways unwell too.
 Again I see some wellness
 for which I am well,
 precisely for that I am unwell.
 Again some wellness happens like this:
 being so unwell,
 I can't understand the wellness at all!
 How much wellness floats away lost!
 How much unwellness comes and goes!
  
 The falling water
 of a high waterfall
 cannot be stopped
 by stone barriers.
 True! Yet
 between water and stone lies ancient conflict.
 The sound of falling water
 changes untimely, that's certain!
  
 Ay... listen!
 From all this 'you' that you are,
 a little 'you'—
 can't you be mine?
  
 Who is this 'you'?
 There is no one called 'you'.....nothing at all....
 No one ever belongs to anyone,
 at day's end everyone is alone,
 only their own.
 Lying alone in a lonely room with oneself—
 this is life!
  
 Walking life's path,
 how little does one know
 where in some stranger's heart's corner
 deep rage accumulates, or resentment,
 becoming the cause of so much pain,
 treading paths, exhausting paths, people live!
  
 Alas, the more one loves someone,
 the more pain surrounds that person!
  
 Foolish heart,
 for whom
 your eyes' tears
 never dry,
 for you
 in their eyes
 not a single drop
 ever gathers!
 They live among joy's company,
 you live by life's pretense.
  
 Yet,
 the desert should have understood
 the spring's flowing!
 Ahh, sit still!
 Don't think I'm so bewildered,
 taking everything, sky and earth, in my own way!
  
 Know this well,
 I know perfectly well
 I am no one.
 I understand
 in what solitude
 I live forgetting all feeling!
 And I know, I love!
  
 The body keeps no count
 of how many steps it has walked,
 only goes losing to fate
 life's so many unwritten vows!