Buddhadeva Bose

Do not send me your glances, the grief of separation fills my heart.
The more I string them together, farther they drift apart, the near and the far.
The long-promised embrace of today and tomorrow ultimately stops short
At a glass wall, unforgiving, clear.

Rather choose one, from among those many
Who never sailed the ocean on paper boats;
You will find home, rice, meat; immersed in a darkness of odours,
You will sleep, afternoons, carressed by feminine hands.

You won't? Do you imagine then, that, reverberating,
I shall sing out, of a sudden, as if a wondrous lute,
To paint on your doe-eyes images of remembrance?

--Only partly true. I do know that you are a heavenly nymph
Exiled by curse. But the call to redeem that sin has not
reached me. Not yet am I a poet enough.