Adrija

You will never know why your crimson lips drive me mad!
How strange the curve of your slender hips,
the sharp ridge of your nose,
the dark kohl-drowned eyes.
On your body a thousand stars seem to scatter,
and why I loved you in the unconscious depths
will remain forever unknown.
 
I do not seek truth; the mind is hesitant.
In the premature blossoming of love,
I am like Mahishasura,
ready to fall prey to your trident—
my wounded heart cast at your feet,
my unconditional surrender.
 
Let the address of your body remain unknown.
I have spent long years loving the shadow alone,
rushing across the earth with ruthless force,
consumed by unnameable fury,
gazing with cunning eyes,
murdering morality in the courts of men.
 
Adrija, if I could love the world as I loved you,
would I not receive, in return,
a crust of bread, a morsel of butter?
Could not a single kiss of yours
have turned me back toward the path of truth?
But in place of a kiss you gave the trident,
in place of love you gave me power,
and so I chose strength.
 
Before death I beheld the firm line of your crimson lips,
the weapons girded upon your narrow waist,
the cosmic satisfaction of wrath
in your black abyssal eyes;
the unblemished smoothness of your body
armoured in the splendour of muscle;
your hard wrists,
your shameless ornaments,
your deep valor
that bore with ease the weight of the trident.
 
I, the insignificant, embrace this earth in neglect,
turning the sandbars of dream into instant crematoriums.
From the flood of a lover’s blood
the walls of civilization rise.
Adrija, your beauty shall triumph; I, the darkness.
Your victory will be proclaimed everywhere; I shall fade at sunset.
Your glory shall be worshipped universally; I condemn myself.
You, conqueror of hatred, destroyer of sin;
I, worm of hell—love has never come to me!
 
And yet, even so, with you in my breast,
before me the blue sea, the endless sky, the dust of earth—
I bind myself in debt of blood
to this land, ocean to Himalaya.
 
You never came, never loved,
and my soul burns in lament.
The ground trembles beneath my feet.
As I go, I call you Goddess.
 
I shall remain still,
upon the altar of your power,
through infinite time,
anchored in the sins of the world.