The Classical Veils of Alternatives

When the string-snapped kite, reeling this way and that through the sky,
suddenly caught and tangled in some dead necropolis city,
what did you see when you looked — who had been murdered more brutally?
The kite, its string severed, lost to all directions?
Or the city's sky, wounded and torn by the kite's wild spinning?

When the swimming-forgotten waterfowl docked at the pond's edge and dove in one plunge,
with the most terrible attempt at suicide,
suddenly stuck at the cement-eaten base of some moss-slick, slippery ghat,
what did you see when you looked — who had lost their existence more heartbreakingly?
The waterfowl, forgetting how to swim, forgetting itself?
Or the moss-covered, cement-eaten slippery ghat, trapped by the waterfowl's mistake?

When the path-lost wayfarer auctioned off love
and lost all roads back to his beloved, saying "I have changed my destination," in beggar's garb,
suddenly stopped in some December suburb during eclipse-time's planetary torment,
what did you see when you looked — who was recorded more wrongfully as "unwandered" in the scribe's ledger?
The wayfarer who forgot his path, abandoned his beloved, lost to the road's demands?
Or December's suburb, bloodied by the thorns of the path that traveled with the wayfarer?

When the lover of forgotten wild courtship, carrying betrayal's burden on his head,
suddenly sought shelter
at some empty banyan root in Ramna,
what did you see when you looked — who was branded more vilely with hatred and disgrace?
The suspicious lover who named love "wildness"?
Or Ramna's empty banyan root, transformed by that lover's wild love?

When the faded fairy tale, having lost entry to the story's cottage,
suddenly hurled words into some mute tunnel
to blend darkness with the moon's love and enrich the sun's radiance with brilliance,
what did you see when you looked — who had painted love's color more swiftly onto the peeling lime of blue-stained walls in compassion's dwelling?
The faded fairy tale, having lost its way in, living on sighs?
Or the mute tunnel, buried under silence's scrap of paper?