How slowly the tinders smolder On this night of exile? Is this way to live? Or is this A way to waste away?

With broken bangles I try to patch my slashed wrists. What is that I had forgotten, In yesterday’s lane, that tonight my feet lead me there again?

Oh my feet must be blind! They don’t see, this is the road That leads to that home Where even my shadow Refuses to follow my body! Where even as it is light It is always dark.

The tinders smolder. The night is exiled.

A rough translation of Gulzar's lyric "Yaara Seeli Seeli" from the movie "Lekin".

How can such a thing of beauty come to pass? Even this last burst of golden rod leaning Into the afternoon light and lengthening Shadow is fading. And on our earth, the mass

Of lives continue to fall as leaves, their descent Beginning right at the shoot and root. This quilt Of passages that covers our memory, is built Even as the priest preaches with certainty, ascent

To us memoirists down here, as we struggle to mend These newly torn maps, imperfectly, not understanding In what measure is our love tied to our grieving, Unable to see what is that lies beyond this bend

Where sorrow falls damp, obscuring our lines of sight. Perhaps there it blooms again, a jonquil in the snowy light.

2003:10:26 Atlanta