In this city there is no sky anywhere. People here are skeletons of concrete. In the village, that little canal by the window— even there, no earth remains. Stone's deception falls everywhere like waterfalls.
What difference between new moon and moonlight? Light in the eyes, darkness in the heart! Are you seeking the source of this river whose waters wash away all kohl?
I was not born to weep for lovers. My heart grieves for a certain mindful king who calls me sometimes little one, sometimes princess.
All wealth I've left behind in one small room— at the window, peering through the gaps between coconut fronds, that moon, what pristine peace in the crickets' restless cry! That fig tree, though it's gone now; night turning to dawn, face buried in the study table...
That adolescence— watching water lilies bloom in the pond at night, that myna bird in the fig tree, melancholy for the cat waiting outside my bathroom door. Have I truly lost it all?
In green rice fields, tender leaves dancing in the wind, running through streets smeared with rain and mud... For all those joys, today my heart is heavy.
Deep at night, rain's enchanted sound and tenderness on tin roofs— nowhere in this city's palaces does it exist.
Here people are like sun-cracked asphalt roads— pour all the water you want, you'll never smell earth.