Goddess

That day I first beheld you, beneath the banyan's shade, in cool green light's gentle embrace,
that day every pore of my being awakened with tremors within me
and whispered only this...
This morning's verdure, nature wrapped in green's soft shawl and her daughter of earth—all seemed wholly, intimately mine.

That morning, the first day of Boishakh felt like my own living,
my first grand union with beauty's queen in that Boishakhi wind's wild dance!
As if some cosmic moment, predestined!

I was a little bewildered,
wondered for a while in amazement,
and pondered long—how could I keep this goddess cradled in nature's arms!
What did I possess?
I who was merely a servant!
I who was just a wildflower crushed beneath her walking path!
I who was empty, I who was hollow,
how could I through offerings and offerings shelter the goddess!

Fortune seemed to come this time with its chariot reversed!
What I never imagined came to pass,
unexpectedly though it was, this servant found place at the goddess's feet,
it felt as if Nature herself came with grace and bestowed fortune's blessing upon some luckless soul.

That Boishakh seemed to become this life's most glorious Boishakh!
But here lies the true game of fate's deception!
What seemed to be...could never fully become!
When a goddess herself comes to offer herself to a servant,
when that servant's devotion, reverence, love, longing are born for her,
then these become nothing but insolence before the goddess—
not keeping this simple truth in mind was truly my mistake!
A mistake beyond forgiveness!

O Goddess,
beloved of my dreams,
if once while searching for errors in error's ledger,
you might by chance discover in this servant's heart's depths
the seat prepared for you,
then today—not that Boishakh as some day filled with mistakes, but perhaps
in life's most sublime day's splendor—I could gaze upon it with eyes of fulfillment!