The Hooded Night

In a handful of dreams' procession of thoughts,
In that hooded rickshaw, in solitude caught,
In a Kanjivaram sari,
you wait.

In blue shirt, under one sunny spell,
With a hundred desires to love you well,
Right in the middle of a green field,
I take aim.

On some crow-drenched rainy day,
If you called me to that veranda way,
I wouldn't have wanted to place hand in hand,
I wouldn't have broken your shy hesitation.

If past the turn, at that little store,
You'd called me secretly to tell me more,
I wouldn't have called you Rupa anymore,
Even as Himu, I wouldn't have forgotten to come.

You paint pictures in reverie,
On some wall where rainbows scatter free,
In the familiar shape of a tender heart,
Still you couldn't find me, search as you might.

In one oil-sticky afternoon,
Behind the veil of becoming my lover soon,
Truly drunk, drunk in that emotion,
Still I didn't come, leaving you behind.