I tire of superstitions:
the asoka blossoms only
at the touch of the beloved's feet;
the bakula must be splashed
with rinsed wine from her mouth;
the tilaka must be hugged
and the amaranth should get a glance from her
before leaf turns green
or the petals colour.

I quicken into flower
at the memory of your touch.

It is the season for illusions:
night mists turn to dawn haze,
frost becomes dew, though sharp.
The night-jar still coughs.
The blackbird is heard sometimes
but she hasn't been seen.
The scent of the mango-blossom is there
but not the mango-blossom.
A bird alights on the leafing lotus bed
thinking it is an island.
Bathing on the ghats,
shawled in mist, she finds
bees moving towards her breast-tips.

Kama, in this torrid summer
let some things remain cool:
her eyes, reflecting the waters,
the smell of jasmine in her hair,
her body dripping with the cold river
as she steps out on the ghats.
If you need tapers at your altar,. Kama,
let her ardour burn.
Let thoughts burn within the cool forehead.
Let the cheeks be cold
but the tongue within all fire.

From the mountain's shoulder to its groin,
from nether regions
to the lip of the escarpment,
forest fires rage simultaneously.
Bark and bud crackle and rain down as ash.
The trapped antelope does not know where to run
as the four directions, wrapped in smoke,
converge on him.
Such is my fate, beloved,
in the forest of your limbs,
under the black rain of your hair.

The rain gods betrayed us last night.
The thunder woke her parents,
lightning showed her stealing from my door.
Such a commotion there was
that despite disturbance in the skies
I heard wooden bolts unfastened
on neighbors doors,
and saw women peeping out.
The rain has stopped today
but the village drips with her escapade.

They are all there,
the paddy-straw covered by a cotton rug,
the white smoke-tendril
uncoiling from an incense-stick,
the air outside sharp with drizzle,
the night sharp with the moorhen's joyous cries.
Only my flank is empty,
only she isn't there.

Shrawan has gone with its singed
smell of lightning,
and the jasmine flowers
are not starred upon the trees
but are a crescent upon her dried hair.
Is lightning necessary
for those smitten by lover's lightning?
Is rain essential
for those wet with each other?

The water-lily bleached
under a septembral sun.
The paddy-straw crackling
under the fires of their love.
A bangle breaks as her arms
pummel his back.
Who says lovers must move
only to the beat of rain?

It is a season for departures:
the clouds have gone
like wild geese from the lake.
Lightning stirs now
only in Yogeswara's verses;
and the flood waters have left with the boatmen.
Yet it is a season for arrivals:
the lover comes to your door
like the night heron.

She, who caught her
stealing back at first light,
said, 'there is mustard-flower
on your back, be careful,
it is getting to be winter.
You may catch cold.
The peasants who spend their nights
with scarecrows in the fields are already warming their hands
on chaff fires.'
'You don't know the fires of our love',
she answered.
'For us it is still shrawan.'

There was some coming and going
on the machaan that night
during his vigil over sugarcane.
The wooden platform,
spread over a fieldbreak,
creaked on, disturbing
the night owl on his perch
and the lapwing in its shrill concentrics.
Fie never shouted even once,
but wild boar kept away
from the phalanxed cane
while the stars wheeled round them.
His envious friends said later
that the wild boar never came because
his machaan creaked through the night
with their love-making.

There was no din in the guava grove
except at first light when parrots
raised a curve-billed cacophony
over half-bitten fruit.
He still slept soundly. The rope
tied to a can perched on a tree fork
lay in his hand, gently clutched,
as if it were a braid of her hair,
the one that had slipped from his string bed
light as a dawn breeze,
the colours of the east
streaking across her love-bitten face.