The balcony waits

- Come, let's go to the balcony, there's no moon in the sky today; we could...
- You want to make love in the moon's absence, I suppose!
- No, darling, I'll show you what a moonless night truly is.
- How?
- It's the story of a man in anguish, once love left him...
- What?
- Waiting on the last day of the full moon...
- And then?
- Innocent love kept waiting and waiting, becoming expectation itself, yet love never kept its word...
- Did it hurt him terribly? Oh, don't tell me everything!
- Yes, his pain caused that full moon terrible suffering; in innocent love's anguish, that full moon lost one phase; searching and searching for love's last drop of light...even today it searches...for where innocent love's devotion has gone! So while one phase remains full moon, the other phase vanishes seeking love, and when one phase of the moon goes missing, that's precisely when the new moon is born.
- How beautiful can a new moon be?
- As beautiful as the aesthetics that dwell in your eyelashes!
- I'm thinking of selling my organized life to you; then I'll become a wanderer, doing cartwheels through life however I please! You see...how I neglect my poor sorrows.
- I understand you deeply, darling! You are my self-loving beloved.
- Let our love walk through the moonlit city then, let our intimate moments be enchanted by rain and kadamba blossoms!
- Look, that's Anu and Krishna over there!
- Indeed, but I've let that go, we'll live out the rest of our lives making joyful sounds in groves of flame trees!
- But I've never seen a flame-tree forest!
- We'll see it together, we're partners in this venture...aren't we!
- Anu is fortunate, isn't she? How much rain, how much spring she received...her companion, that Krishna-life!
- Yes, more than you...do you want to say it then?
- Why shouldn't I! I've received no rain with you...not even a fragment of spring! Rust has settled on my fate, darling.
- What you've said, this monsoon you're in Shitalakshya, I'm in Padma. Will this distance never end, Somu?
- Then how will we trade our sorrows, tell me! In the Creator's drawn blueprint we're merely pawns!
- Not every life births stories of happiness, isn't that right, Somu!
- I know, darling, I'm walking toward an uncertain destination, yet this much joy comes from simply walking, you understand!
- As time runs out, I feel more and more that except for you, I have nothing left worth contemplating!
- Poet, I am the woman of your poetry! Yet you say such grand things...you have no story!
- I have no story indeed! Rather, I'll write your story someday.
- In that story you won't find me, perhaps someone will be there, perhaps I myself will be there, but in that story you won't find me. Stories don't happen without words, didn't you know, poet!
- You're turning me away, girl; but even the sun in this city is terribly sorrowful. Perhaps you're beyond comprehension, yet the story must be written behind the curtain! You could try walking through sorrow's neighborhood, what's the harm!
- You have no story, you don't have...what story-people are like. You'll write a story, in that story I too become "absent." You can call the sun sorrowful, the sun will simply laugh and forget in neglect. I want to walk on sorrow's hidden path, perhaps...I wanted to! In a no-story person's story I too become "absent"...that's why I can't walk anymore!
- Let all the danger be mine, girl! New moon has been born within me, so I seek prosperity in your depths! Enrich me, woman! I have no home in pure neighborhoods, darling!
- Danger! It's in my marrow; like the new moon once was! Shadow doesn't need to be taught darkness...you understand? I set out seeking prosperity, like a wild vine; I found you under the flame tree, alone and absorbed! From a distance you said, wild vines don't bring prosperity! Yet you have no home in that neighborhood, perhaps you did, you didn't go...absorbed tree, so indifferent! Believers in purity never trample wild vines.
- Let a few handfuls of faith stay tied in my sari's corner; I'm a bankrupt man, consider it, I've kept them deposited! Sitting under the flame tree I count words, some kind of celebration; a faded poet, so I found no place; finally I become an exile!
- You were saying, a person can't see all of themselves...like a cloudy mirror!
Yet I've managed to keep faith, rust has finally settled on years of discarded two eyes!
Being bankrupt is an art; like the new moon, pure in its depth---
I glance sideways at the fire of colors in the flame tree; as you do in poetry...
Like homeless moonlight, even the sun's thirst is quenched by wealth; what am I then, a neglected sludge grown carelessly!
- You spoke of moonlight because you know the night; dawn too is your relative there! No acquaintance with the sun, the moon doesn't call me either! Then sell me that city of neglect, girl!
- You were saying, yellow evenings burn in the funeral pyre--- like how the sky suddenly breaks and falls in separation!
Yet you spoke truly, I have no wealth, what I have is merely preparation for burning!
I went to the moon's house; I saw you singing at the festival!
I thought you'd call me; like how householders welcome guests!
You said, go back, I don't know the sun!
I didn't auction the city of neglect; you could say, that's all the wealth I have!
- Girl, you've learned love so deeply! Such depth is your own...I can't find shore searching!
- Is that so, poet? I am merely an instrument! Knowledge's philosophy happens only with the seeker. Otherwise your philosophy wouldn't have become mine. So I could indeed be a seeker!
- Seeker, I accept you as my guru, will we cross the Himalayas together now?
- Come, the balcony is waiting!