The Cultivation of Punishment

 One.
 Listen, sixteen-year-old, don't touch me,
 fall like moonlight in my courtyard,
 fly to the horizon, to the realm of clouds, wonderfully small—no harm in that,
 but don't touch me.
 Wildfire, I think, is far better—
 than dying from your touch!
 So, sixteen-year-old, I plead with you, don't touch me.
  
 Two.
 In your rose-colored sleeves
 the scent of attar has grown faint
 throw away the fragrance-memory—like an abandoned beloved
 when even the last letter of desire has been touched for the final time,
 draw a satisfied line and go far away, forgetting everything.
 Cursed seems the soil of my own heart!
 O young man! Whom you desired in first youth
 that face floats away in swollen youth,
 in the crowd of so many pairs of eyes and thousands of faces
 your exuberance seems to erase the burning of blood!
 Gradually you become a stranger under what spell!
 From devoted lover to some random other—
 in that journey not even a little stops your walking!
 How easily forgotten! Just because forgetting is easy, must we forget?
  
 Three.
 Look, friend, can you recognize me anymore?
 I...I am that most insignificant beloved—
 for hundreds of thousands of years I surge and die like the wild Padma,
 I stay awake waiting for you to come—sleep won't come.
 I haven't slept for several lifetimes, believing you would return.
 Then why didn't you come back, beloved?
 Why did you turn away those two eyes?
 Just once, look back to that distant past
 the thirst that mingled in the first kiss
 the way the first sigh made me weep
 all the sudden joy the first touch gave—
 perhaps that weeping
 that thirst, that laughter, that happiness
 was brought by an unknown person—
 to that very person I surrendered my rare heart in first love.
  
 Four.
 On this left side of the chest there is no bone,
 what is there then, do you know?
 There is heart, beloved, along with anguish!
 Like the son of God
 I know, he will return!
 One day he will come back—
 in my tears, in my breath, in every belief
 just as they return again and again
 the hosts of suffering—how unerring and certain!
 The day I am freed, that day at heaven's gate
 he will announce my welcome.
 I will bow in reluctance and unwillingness—in rebellious gratitude!
 Still...still I won't find him in this life,
 so I ask only for forgiveness—
 because he never forgave me once
 I have cultivated punishment in blood throughout my entire life!
  
 Five.
 Again and again I ignore it, yet why does it call?
 It calls so much, just keeps calling—why does it call like this?
 How many days it's been, I don't look at the sky anymore.
 I look at the sky, and immediately I see, arms outstretched it calls me, wants to pull me in!
 I desperately want to cry, want to abandon everything and live.
 Look here, twenty years have passed,
 or perhaps a little less—on the clock's hands,
 every single moment of this youth, counting breath by breath,
 I have kept imprisoned in virginity for you alone,
 I have pulled the reins of the wild horse of gasping breath down to low pressure,
 I have calmed the waves rushing from the shore, brought them back by what force?
 For twelve months I have woven spring in the chamber of my heart,
 I have counted the watches of misty nights for you alone.
 In all heat and in desire, lighting fire
 I have offered oblations to the fire of chastity hundreds of times!
 O god! Don't turn away the offering,
 accept it, lighting your own lamp with the pain of the ghee-flame.