The Grave of Momentary Bliss

That stillness you gave me as a gift, without my asking,
how I've become entangled in it completely—this news will never reach you.

All my joys and sorrows merged into one long ago,
past, present, future—caught between these three in some strange sway
I keep swinging.

The stiffness of my pen has bound me today in a hundred chains,
the very power to carry myself seems emptied,
on every page of the notebook where I write to you, now only
the startled marks of mistaking you!
Listen closely, just once,
and you'll find only heaps of regret and lamentation!

Why did this happen, can you say? In the gap of time? Or in change?
If in change, then is it only time's doing?
Or have you yourself become time's slave and been transformed?
Your time and time's you—with both of these
I am terribly out of tune today! You two together
have chained memory's canvas and walked far down the road!

No no no, I never wanted back that terrible contagious emotion of yours,
never wanted to return forgetting distance, never wanted to appear in a single line you wrote,
how much pride and reproach lost their proof, in the rain of tears feelings have aged now.
Today only this remains—my incurable disease, this sickness of wanting to touch you!

Now in the realm of black smoke a thousand emotions burn, love nearly consumed has lost its way,
what a cascade of fire happens in the betrayed heart, poetry today yields only suppressed pain!
At day's end I am half-dead, a different person, who in the busy crowd of thousands
is silent or exiled—by my own rule, in my own sphere, by my own will.

However many times there's been discord,
I've kept count of just as many moments of restlessness.
However much I've loved you, that much has been my place—
only at Rabindranath's feet.

You can certainly neglect me,
I love you, so the protest doesn't quite come!
On one side of me burns wild fire,
on the other, a desert void of burning.

Now you're terribly busy catching the scent of newness,
and here I only search for you, leaving behind thousands of new things.
I'm doing fine, as fine as one can be after leaving you!
Who knew before... how many eternities together dig the grave of a moment's joy!