Broken into Unexpected Song

by A.V. Koshy

Vina
the ground beneath your feet trembles
under such fragile soles!

Today I too feel the earth has swallowed you up.
Your cherry lips’ called and I was unable to reply in time.

I looked for you but I could not, and still cannot, find you there under the mango tree in our heat-riven orchard of green

The distance between us seems to have become infinite, unbridgeable -

It's under my feet that there is no longer any earth, Vina

Rest your head on my lap(’s) hollow, Vina
let me, a sage once
only a sinner now
not beg at your door, as a Buddhist monk

 Deny me
not
into your musical domain

Do not take these few shreds, mere pot-shards, of dignity I have left
away from me
and into darkness, alone, reft, cast...me

where there is no future or return; the ice never melting
from polar caps
to end and restart the world
again and again

Oh, do not
I abjure you
leave me here, lonely, calling your name
playing on its resounding strings
in the outer dark

where there is weeping and wailing
and gnashing of teeth
forever
but no instrument
to make Song praising you
as Orpheus or Tansen did
 Eurydice or white fire. .