Come back as spring's first dew upon the mango bud's tender skin, as the wild duet of drunken bees, male and frenzied, come back!
Come back as the river's last foamy kiss along the bank, two night-jasmine buds in honey-sweet maroon light; in late night's drowsy ketaki dreams of adolescence, catching violin strings, you come back.
Come back to drumstick flowers touched by gentle breeze in this unbroken household of you and me, for it's time now to paint everything moon-colored... See how the fireflies have turned red, shiuli-dew rings the bell of return, come back to my heart-temple as mine, in another birth.
If you go to evening's house, a cup of kisses in hand where dawn's lost train sets down flower-buds, still know this—I remain as the touch of gulmohar's body, yours.
Come back, for a day or two, as smoky afternoons in green dreams a small story will be written on heron wings, with one you, two yous, countless yous—my pen's first love... that you!
Yet how long it's been since I've written, you know! How long since rains came to the suburbs; the clouds' bodies ache with happiness, they say! Drowning kadamba-drunk birds haven't nested, moss gathers now in tree-hearts under night's shadow, dream-shouldered runners don't race the roads, letters lie about, misspelled, I too stand waiting, since that morning to keep a handful of you in my chest pocket through eyes' magic; yet the day won't turn, hangs there across the entire sky!
Come back once more in tree-shade, night neighborhoods, incense smoke, pen and paper, story and tea, letter-homes, quilt and thread in love.