The Dream-Song of Kali

Let all the world's misplaced
causeless, groundless, purest love or longing—
in harsh sunlight's cruelty
wither away forever, die out.
Autumn sky, gentle soft breeze—
crossing borders, crossing boundaries...
that little happiness which looks like sorrow from outside,
let it merge and merge... spreading wider, wider all around!
 
Monsoon's streaming rain—
that sorrow which looks like joy from outside,
let it wash away that pain
and love—of separation,
in rough intoxication
beyond this autumn
let it revel...for eternity.
 
That melody rings in my ears alone, and
that smile floats in my eyes,
oh how I long to forget it, alas,
the more I try, the more it returns!
Those two stars on my eyelids,
seem to gaze, gaze grief-stricken.
The more I say, oh, I won't bind you with thread,
the more it loves, the more it loves.
 
Joy stirs in my heart,
tears fill my eyes,
trying to forget, I die within myself,
deceiving my own soul.
In what bond with pain
have I bound you in unknown longing,
perhaps you dwell only in sorrow,
so I live hoping for sorrow.
Oh how I long to forget you, alas,
the more I try, the more you return!
 
Sometimes I desperately want to
forget ideals and conscience, push aside all barriers,
drunk on wild joy, fulfill every wish of my heart!
Then I think—for whom all this—love and prayer-longing,
shall I revel pushing principles aside? For whose harm? How could I!
If I myself lose the path, how can I call to another?
So I give respite to desire—live alone with myself—like the eternal!
 
This imagined city—so dear,
so dear—like some beloved imaginary love.
Yet in this very city, sometimes I suffocate...
everything feels strange; I think, this city is another city, or I am another me!
Helpless emotions press my chest from all sides...swallowing pain, I barely escape alive!
Sometimes I think to myself, making all love false someday—I'll pay off love's debt! This is how I'll take revenge on myself!
I close all paths myself, for no reason keep searching—where to flee, where to flee!—I can't find that path!
When I see the whole body of relationship has shackles but no lock, then I understand the pull—terribly!
A closed door—might break sometime—in the violence of the final blow!
A door that stays open, binds terribly—what can break that strong bond?
When the mind gets confused, it says so much, keeps saying—yet my city flows in some current...
 
Endlessness is mixed deep in my blood,
so finding biryani, I don't devour it greedily—throwing away plain rice...
Finding light, I don't push away darkness in joy and celebrate.
However much it disguises itself, I've learned coming here, it's all the same—at day's end!
 
I think intensely,
that love floating in imagination, I'll wander with it through this city...someday.
Beloved, with beloved love—in the fragrance of these two, this city will remain drunk in deep enchantment!
I'll touch that enchantment, get intoxicated, like those old times...
In some unknown corner of urban alleys the night will pass, all spoken and unspoken words will gather like bubbles in the heart's body.
Everything's fine, but do you know what's happened,
that love wandering the roads of imagination—did it love, does it love, will it love—who knows!
Though I know, whether I believe or not makes no difference, I've seen still, in disbelief I stay much better these days!
All the love in the world, how do I know everyone's grammar!...tsk tsk brother, what nonsense are you thinking!
Actually I'm just saying, imagined love and real love—different bridges, must be crossed by different rules—don't be torn thinking them the same!
 
I stay awake...all day and night, and the imagined one's—sudden awakening!
Duality snorts, saying why wait awake for one
who wakes up two-four times a year?
I laugh and say, I stay awake because I can't sleep.—This is my choice, my freedom.
It sleeps, or suddenly wakes by mistake of mind.—That's its choice, its freedom.
Love, I've understood, means only—learning to live in freedom, letting live in freedom, nothing else.
But if that free living lives surrounded by sin—then that's another account!
 
Listening silently...suddenly laughing, Duality says,
the one you see before your eyes, live loving—why do you bring that one repeatedly into imagination?
Swallowing tears, spreading smiles, I say,
one who can't be found anywhere in this reality, finding in imagination at will—I enchant life! Understand, fool?
A bloomed flower stays bloomed, a bud never becomes one by any magic,
a bud might court death staying a bud—yet eternal silent hope in its heart—to bloom a little before dying...what the flower looks like, if only I could see!