TRANSLATIONS: ARUNAVA SINHA

1
That’s how miracles happen
Suddenly an ordinary seashell cracks open
Blinding white moonlight flashes inside

You rolled like a pearl into my palm
The scene changed at once
To my right was a cloudy day
It turned into a split pomegranate sunshine
And on my left the pile of bricks
Arranged itself into a red-tiled cottage

That’s how miracles happen

2
Open it all up today
Leave no flower hidden
Give me the Mediterranean Sea too if I ask
If my arms reach out

If in the afternoon I want
The reddened lips of twilight
If I want moonlight at dusk
Sitting on my wooden chair
If I ask you to be
A cataclysmic river
Give me all your torrents
Leave no wave hidden
Give me the Mediterranean Sea too if I ask
If my arms reach out

3
When you come the sun rises
Birds awaken on the seashore
The fragrant wedding chamber is aroused on an indifferent meadow
The brittleness of bones when the festivities are over

When you come the moon rises in your eyes
Ripening like succulent, fulfilled fruit
Desire, temptation
A forest from a distant journey
Breaks though the walls of the room

When you come the clouds and rain are both priceless
Our wooden chair
Where the city peters out, the symphony of monsoon
Careens away like a drunken boat without a future
The earth ages
We rub against the ash heap of the world, a foreign land of scattered scenes
The grief and heat and fever and pain of this century
Still we remain young