In the right to keep you

 If after many years
 suddenly
 you don't answer the phone,
 don't reply to letters,
 or if day after day
 I call and find it 'switched off'
 and keep finding it so—
 know this: even then I won't understand, not even by mistake.
  
 I'll convince myself you're not near the phone perhaps,
 maybe you're in a conference or meeting.
 I'll think, perhaps the phone is simply lost!
 It could be stolen, or you're abroad—that happens too!
 Or maybe, fed up with my pestering, you've finally changed your number.
  
 Not even by mistake will I misunderstand you then,
 I'll tell myself you've moved somewhere else,
 to some distant country, living there now.
 It's possible you're hiding somewhere, planning to surprise me!
 Or something has happened, some special reason
 keeps the phone out of reach, you can't answer.
 These things happen, don't they?
 Still, I won't err in understanding you!
 Are you laughing? Thinking, what is this fool saying? Well, wait and see when the time comes!
  
 Know this though: it will never occur to this heart
 that my 'you' has vanished, is no more!
 That searching won't find you—here, there... nowhere at all!
  
 Even then, you alone will fill my entirety, no one else.
 Beloved, your absence has one meaning to me, clear as the pole star.
 You'll be lost only when I'm gone; while I remain, you remain too!
 To me, your absence means only one thing: my death!
  
 Without you my poems won't reach their true address,
 they'll be worth nothing then, not a penny.
 Without you my writing pen will break,
 the pristine paper will disappear or run out with me.
  
 Or if someday you come and tell me,
 my 'you' is lost, nowhere to be found,
 I won't believe it even then!
  
 And from that day
 in deep hurt...
 I won't read another word you write.
 All my poems written to you, I'll erase, throw away.
 Truly, I'll delete all your writings saved from phone to notebook,
 that very day I'll deliberately lose the phone,
 from then I'll forget every alphabet in the world,
 burn diary pages, writing pads,
 all memories you gave my body, all lingering scents...
 I'll wash them away. In meditation or in love, from that day
 I won't walk the streets anymore,
 never touch green again!
  
 Whatever happens, let it happen, still in understanding you
 I won't be wrong, not even by mistake will I be wrong!
 That day I won't listen to you either!
 If I live,
 if I must live,
 I'll live with you then—under this same moon, the whole life, together.