Love-Destruction

 One.
 Ghanashyam, O my beloved dark one,
 why does your flute sing, again and again,
 Radha's name?
 Why does the necklace at your throat weep—
 that anguish echoes in my breast!
 Tell me, how can I ever repay
 the price of your pain?
 Why does your flute sing, again and again,
 Radha's name?
  
 Even the Yamuna...
 she too knows how the arrow's fire pierces,
 only you fail to understand me, O life-dark one!
 Why bind me with such threads, tell me, beloved!
 If you must bind me, why push me so far away?
 Body and mind and the soul within—
 all I have offered in your name!
 Yet why, O Shyam, does your flute
 make me restless, drive me from home,
 singing only Radha's name?
  
 Two.
 Who calls me silently today,
 as the shoreline calls its waves,
 as the flute calls in Radha's name—
 In blue moonlight I listen, ears straining,
 it calls to me...
 Desire urgent—scattered,
 floating in air, binding in air,
 and dreams burning there, beyond!
  
 In what bondless sorrow someone clips restless wings,
 I weep with yearning eyes at this wrong hour,
 so I wake, and begin to sing,
 in the tune of breaking, the heartless beloved
 only makes me cry!
 You seem to be another name for melancholy,
 all the clouds cast their veils and flee in terror—what thoughts!
 That sleep-stealing moonlight spills today, absent-minded—as if utterly bereft!
 Your breast bursts with thirst! This is life!
  
 Three.
 O beloved, there were so many words to say,
 will you have time to listen?
 Why does the evening bird come and question me, scold me?
 Why in this lonely pain does water fall—
 and come to rest in my heart!
 These two eyes only burn,
 no water falls, but fire falls.
  
 At your door I wander, return,
 only gazing down the path, lost in thought,
 in hiding I wonder—am I still who I was?
 In my life it is your place alone,
 how many times I've tried to forget,
 in disconnection from myself the night passed—countless such nights!
 In my heart new winds will set me swaying,
 touching other lips with mine I'll forget—the sadness of old wounds!
 So many dreams! Yet again and again—
 in wrong seasons I tenderly gather flowers, string garlands.
 The garland threaded with
 the story of tears,
 that garland I could never give you,
 never could forget you despite a hundred blows!
 The farther you've gone, the more you've returned—
 in burning sight, in broken ribs,
 in blue sorrow's full monsoon!