You all whom I know, yet you are so far away.
All your environment, your coming and going,
waves surging on all sides,
All belong to a familiar world, yet its hesitation to invite -
I am distant from all, yet the language of your veins
Wells from mine own heart, I feel sullen and astonished
To consider at each contact, with a confused identity,
It seems to offer the pale and meagre relationship of an exile.
I have something to give, otherwise how can lives
Find any resemblance, I cannot come with assured feet
In fear that the empty cup and the very savour of the drink
Have lost their previous appeal, perhaps the bartering
Will prove disgraceful. Therefore maintaining this distance,
From the bottom of this merciless solitude I am calling you :
The Lakshmi32 of life who has clothed me with ever new dresses
32 Goddess of beauty, harmony and riches
With her on the day of separation, by blowing off festive lamps
Will cause no humiliation out of an insulting misery,
Stripping the ornaments, will cover one by one
With colourless and artless slashes, on the forehead
Will paint an insignia with a white contour;
You, too, shall come and join with the full pitcher of life
In that final rite, probably you will hear at a distance
The well-wishing notes of a conch from beyond the horizon.
[ janmadine, "On my Birthday", No. 29, 1941]