Grammar of Rights

  
 Today I am wildly happy!
 Someone came laughing to my heart's chamber and said,
 "Are you well?"
 As if a pair of warm lips whispered near my ribs...
 Like some branch trembling in the storm wind
 What tremors through my entire chest!
 I am like a playful sparrow,
 Flying away to that horizon, right where you dwell.
 Wings fluttering, beak dancing, I'll say—
 Touch me, don't fail to take your share of rightful joy this evening...
 From this chest, from the trembling of lips,
 From this fortress of ribs!
  
 When rain falls, go to the roof, stretch out both hands to touch the rain mindfully,
 Keep your hands spread like wings on both sides, be a bird on rainy days.
 I will become rain and touch you,
 Perhaps we'll never meet again,
 This one life will pass, only wakeful thirst will remain...
 I'll think of you like ancestral memory,
 Perhaps keep you on forgetfulness's page.
  
 Sometimes like the polar star's light I'll surely come near, worn away.
 In the attic of my chest where soft pain rises,
 In that pain will sound your memory-laden tune.
 Some pain, some weeping, still...
 Not the poverty-stricken loneliness, never!
 All my incompleteness,
 Let it be fulfilled in your pain,
 Let my love scatter broken in the separation of your heart,
 Let everything shatter and the attic become empty in this solitude.
  
 Still, if you ever remember
 In some boundless monsoon of forgetting,
 Come. Come breaking through walls of resistance
 To my verdant, full horizon,
 I'll give you monsoons with both hands—take them.
 I store up monsoons, burn my eyes,
 Yet bring your sunshine down to my heart.
  
 What has gathered motionless for endless moments in these burnt eyes—
 That reservoir water—drunk on water-play, having absorbed all the fragrance of jasmine,
 Like me—waiting for it...
 Let it return...this prayer.
 Silent night's deep quiet, drowning water's tender sounds in the restless peace of two existences, let it float in muffled voice...
 I convince myself—
 For someone
 to exist within oneself
 or,
 for oneself
 to exist in someone's heart—
 the search for visible form
 of intense feeling
 is unnecessary.
 Causeless restlessness, reasonable pain—life's meaning isn't so simple, know this!
 Look eye to eye with nature—
 Though invisible itself, yet holding everything in its body
 The wind is unique!
  
 I'm not saying I want only you.
 I'm saying I want the right to your paired lips,
 Fill my everything with kisses on one shadowy path!
 I want one living doll,
 Whose hand I'll hold through tired evenings,
 Or that great moment—
 When autumn sunshine will descend
 Across my heart's courtyard, moonlight will play in some spring.
  
 No, I'm not asking for only you.
 Till death I'll farm the ground of your chest—
 That right I'm asking for.
 Will you give it, tell me?
 I'll fasten your white shirt's buttons, redden them with lipstick marks,
 Hold you tight and tell you—
 This mad girl loves you terribly much! Remember,
 No one will ever love you like this again.
 Listen a little, look here, in your eyes, in your chest—only you,
 I love you fiercely, bind you in overwhelming affection,
 Whatever else you do, never misunderstand, not ever.
  
 In what deep anguish...
 Your gaze touches only me.
 Deep pure longing hidden in the corner of your eyes, you speak,
 I know this well.
 In dense love you lift me or burn me—in open sky,
 I understand it all.
 Build paradise with the blood of ribs,
 You've taken for granted that all your sacrifice, all your love,
 Has filled me bit by bit—
 As eager rain fills the Yamuna's gold!
 You think only of the overflowing waves as tide,
 You don't float in that tide, only drowning and calculating!
 You won't find me searching in laughter,
 To understand me, seek my tears.
  
 Your separation makes me weep,
 Drowns me gradually in life's evening.
 You are so good, you bear such pain,
 I never wanted that!
 All your unspoken desires,
 Let them not become words, let them accumulate.
 From far away let your fragrance
 Intoxicate these two lips,
 Let fierce, restless thirst awaken!
 You too might as well be a little careless,
 What's the use of staying so pure, tell me?
 In wasted moments I might have become wasted selling sorrow!
  
 I love your 'you',
 But not you yourself.
 Don't go away, stay a while,
 Touching the vast boundaries of my chest,
 In your sighs
 Let the windows of my body's foliage tremble,
 Let storms rise in deep hair at your touch,
 Let melancholy love become joyful,
 Let all colors surround me today.
 I was born in a hundred births—to have you—I've learned this much,
 Drawing you close, I've embraced you to my chest with hundreds of affections many, many times!
 What do you call this? Have you ever thought?
  
 This wealth, whatever else it is, is not roughly-measured love.
 The way people say 'I love you',
 On roads, fields, riverbanks the sacrifice of love continues,
 That love is terribly cheap, I see how much!
 Past parks and restaurants I see, in the gaps between trees,
 Love there revels in primitive passion's lips,
 The intoxication of honey-bees settles—tell me, in that market, where is love?
  
 Don't keep me in your stories, keep me in your life,
 Look deep in your chest, you'll find yourself there,
 Where your 'you' lives, there you'll find this 'me'.