Beyond Land and Time

The Two

(Dujôn)

Translated by Bhaswati Chakravorty

‘How long it is since you have looked for me—or I

For you; though under the same star, both of us—on the same

Earthshine shore; traces of the world's old paths wear away,

Love fades slowly, the star too must die one day;

Mustn't it?’ With this he turned to his companion.

Today with this field, this sun, this responsive Kartik-Agrahayan,

His heart is full.

The two came today by the abiding sky and earth

For the first time again, it seemed—as if in need—in some deep, solitary faith.

Reddish yellow leaves on rose-apple, banyan, pipal boughs,

Move in the dark, harmonious, fall on the grass below,

Then lie in everlasting consolation.

Where in the sky there is great silence, great peace,

Where human beings make their way, once in the heart the tale of love is over

To seek assurance of the star, time's accomplice,

Two in that wide plain: all round among tamarisk, mango, neem, nageswar.

Autumn is come; the kite's golden wing has turned brown;

The dove looks unfeathered; the myna has no more time—

Stiff yellow feet upturned, she will sleep in a pool of dew.

Here all things droop and die—by a far-spread law bidding adieu.

The woman to her companion: ‘I know traces of the world's

old paths

Wear away; but tell me, with what will our destitute hearts

Live then? Once the heart was wounded with too much feeling,

Now withered away; today l wish the ear of love's grain

Had not turned sere—if' love's peerless offspring.

Flushed desire, had not died in our hearts, alas—’

With this she hid her face in all of her forlorn anchal

And stood knee-deep among the heaving meadow-reeds,

Yellow sari pricked with burrs, her body touched and brushed

By Agrahayan's disheveled straws blowing in from the emptiness around.

The mist lays a hand on her hair, and dew drips on the ground.

The lover thought: ‘This woman—beautiful—will be found

On stellar shores, where I will not be, nor this sweetness,

nor despair,

Nor any more mist—only longing incarnate—a love like desire Will seek out from the herd of deathless does its sole beloved.’