Arpita

On the last day of the festival,
Arpita, I beheld thee—
behind the veil of thy hair, thine eyes did shine,
like basil leaves anointed with sandal,
pressed gently upon thy sacred form.
 
Now, when the harvest of paddy is ended,
and the sweet rice lies steaming upon the veranda,
thou walkest the path of milk,
and I stretch my gaze as far as the eyes can wander,
for in thy shape I see the gentle cow,
pierced by its own horn of destiny.
 
In this land of the Mother-river,
where exiles love the road more than the home,
lightnings of longing gather in their hearts;
upon the endless streets of swelling cities,
lovers stand in rows, afflicted by fevers of desire.
 
Doubt awakes in me, for in thy silent breath
the breast doth rise and fall;
in thine oblique glance is irony and pride.
This earth is not mine, I know it well—
and unto him to whom thou gavest thy soul,
thou art Arpita.
 
Or is it I who, pouring lemon’s sour into sugar,
have wasted life in hypocrisy?
This soil belongs to none—
sharecroppers till and burn, again and again,
on shores where fires sink in the waves of longing.
How shall I tell thee of the drowning fire of desire?
 
Behind thy hair, thy eyes turn inward to mine;
and I dream—one day this land shall be ploughed
by the hands of a blessed farmer.
But now it is gazed upon by the wolfish eyes
of those who seize,
while the landless peasant’s eyes,
burning even on the night of death,
hold the sorrow of earth itself.
 
I love an art, and also
those others who, landless, rise in virile strength.
The two chambers of the human brain
overflow with the sap of longing,
and I shall bear their struggle
into the folds of thy sari,
like the fever of forbidden love.
 
The pavements of memory’s lane,
in that ruined time,
smelled of gunpowder borne upon the air.
Through open windows my two feet carried me,
and history fed upon fragments of itself,
while in the solitary current of life’s stream
my love drifted, illumined with joy.
 
Arpita, I beheld thee
on that day of festival,
because a possibility sought to fall like seed
into the earth—
and in the tender sheaves of rice
love, and body, and the force of life
would one day stand upright.
Red was my heart,
blue was love in its venom.
 
Yet the land, how fertile it remains—
beauty, nature, and soil!
Whosoever sows within it,
flower and fruit are born.
The golden sky bends over the ripened field,
yet he whose mind is famine,
who knows only denial—
his house yields no harvest,
and he dwells in solitude.