- Come, let's go out to the balcony. There's no moon in the sky tonight; we could just... - So you want to make love in the absence of the moon! - No, darling. I want to show you the night of the new moon. - How? - It's a story of a suffering soul, a soul that love once... - What? - Left waiting at the last day of the full moon... - And then? - Innocent love waits and waits, becomes waiting itself, yet love breaks its promise... - Does he suffer greatly? Oh, don't tell me the rest! - Yes, in his suffering the full moon itself suffers terribly; in the pain of innocent love, the moon loses one half of its face; searching, searching for the last drop of love's light...still searching today...for where love's beloved hides! So even when the full moon glows on one side, it vanishes on the other, searching for love; and when the moon disappears on both sides, that's when the new moon is born. - How beautiful is a new moon? - As beautiful as the art of eyes dwelling in yours! - I'm thinking, I'll sell you my orderly life; then I'll become a vagrant, somersault through life however I please, and watch it spin! See how carelessly I neglect my small sorrows. - I understand you so well, darling! You are my self-loving beloved. - Let our love walk through the city of moonlight, let our private moments be enchanted by the rain and the kadamba tree! - Look, that's Anu and Krishna over there! - Yes, so let me leave them be. We'll spend the rest of our lives making joyful noise in the forests of flame trees! - I've never seen a forest of flame trees! - We'll see it together. After all, we're joint farmers...aren't we? - Anu is blessed, isn't she? She got so much rain, so much spring, with Krishna as her companion! - Yes, even more than you have...want to say it then? - Why shouldn't I! I got no rain with you...no, not even a patch of spring! Fortune has rusted over, dear. - The way you speak—in this rain you're in the Shitolakshya river, I'm in the Padma. Will this distance ever close, Somu? - Then how will sorrow's commerce happen, tell me! We're just pawns in the Creator's game! - Not every life births a story of happiness, does it, Somu? - I know, love. I'm walking toward an undetermined destination, yet I find this much joy in walking with intention—do you see? - The more time passes, the more it feels that without you, there's nothing left for me to think about! - Poet, I am the woman of your poem! But then you say...you have no story at all! - I have no story. But one day I'll write your story. - You won't find me in that story. Perhaps someone else will be there, perhaps I myself—but you won't find me in it. A story cannot exist without words, did you know that, poet? - You're turning me away, girl; yet in this city even the sun is terribly sad. Perhaps you're beyond understanding, yet still I must write the story on the curtain! You can walk through sorrow's shore—what's so terrible in that? - You have no story, you're not like the people who live in stories. You'll write a story, and in that story I too become "nothing." You can call the sun sad, the sun will just laugh and forget in its heedlessness. I wanted to walk the pathless way of sorrow, perhaps...I did want to! In the story of a man without a story, I too become "nothing"...so I cannot walk anymore! - Let all peril be mine alone, girl! An new moon was born inside me, so I search for abundance in your depths! Make me abundant, woman! For I have no home in the pure quarter! - Peril! It's in my marrow; it was there like the new moon! Shadow doesn't need darkness to know itself...do you see? I set out searching for abundance, like a wild vine; I found you beneath the flame tree, alone and immersed. You said from afar—wild vines find no abundance! Yet perhaps you had a home on that other shore, you just didn't go...the way an immersed tree remains indifferent!
Those who believe in purity never trample the wild vine.
– Let a handful of faith be knotted to the edge of a sari; I am a bankrupt man, think of it, I have left things in trust! I sit beneath the flame tree and count sounds, some kind of festival perhaps; a faded poet, so I found no place; at last I become an exile in the forest!
– You were saying, a man can never see all of himself…like a clouded mirror!
But I have managed to believe; years of abandonment have finally rusted in these two eyes!
To be bankrupt is an art; like the new moon in its depth, utterly pure—
I see sideways, the fire of colors in the flame tree; as you do in poetry…
Homeless moonlight in its richness—even the sun’s thirst is quenched; what am I but nothing, a murky neglect that grew without care!
– You speak of moonlight because the night belongs to you; dawn too is kin to it! I have no acquaintance with the sun, nor does the moon call me! Then sell me this city of neglect, girl!
– You were saying, yellow evenings burn in sun-worship— as in separation, even the sky suddenly breaks and falls!
But you spoke true: I have no wealth, what I have is only arranged for burning!
I went to the moon’s house; I saw you raise a song at the gathering!
I thought, surely you will call me; as those at home mean towards a guest!
You said, Turn back, I do not know the sun!
I did not put the city of neglect up for auction; you can say, that is all the wealth I have!
– Girl, you have learned love too deeply then! Such depths are all your own…where I cannot find even dry land!
– That is so, poet? I am but a means! The vision of knowledge happens with the seeker. Otherwise your vision would not have become mine. So I can be the seeker!
– Seeker, I accept you as my teacher then—shall we cross the Himalayas together this time?
– Come, the balcony waits!