Not the goddess of the hearth, but the goddess of verse

I am only your muse of poetry; the goddess of home, I am surely not!
So though I have unrestricted rights to enter your verses at will,
my entry into the chambers of your heart is merely trespass without permission!

Imagine, if suddenly on some rain-drenched evening, in the thunder of monsoon,
an introduction happened in the company of some impossibility!

On that evening, in that moment, if I came forward with claims of anonymity
and blocked your path,
would you tell me to huddle in some corner of your heart's room, saying I disturb you?
Or would you, right at the threshold where I always enter your poetry,
raise barriers, halt all my movement, and shackle my feet?

If you ever set out walking knee-deep in water, fearing you might get lost,
then on that watery path, as your only aquatic companion,
who would be more objectionable to take along—
the muse of poetry, or the goddess of home?

Have you ever seen a melancholy beautiful afternoon
turning dark brown or deep black?
Which seemed more your own to you?
That melancholy beautiful afternoon?
Or the deep brown darkness it was becoming?

This waiting for you every moment—
from which perspective do you view it?
As the sky-touching audacity of poetry's goddess?
Or as the inexorable destiny of home's goddess?

Thinking we would walk together for a thousand years,
at that special threshold moment when you wanted to make me yours,
wanted to bind me as your beloved for a hundred lifetimes,
in that threshold-light, was I present there at all?
Or was there only some muse of poetry you had created, called 'I'!

Is that why, perhaps, I no longer have even the slightest desire
to become the goddess of home, to belong only to you?
Is this how I have become your muse of poetry today?
I understand—I am only poetry's goddess... the goddess of home—that I can never be!