The Last Love Song

Kunhappa Pattannur

This night
The stars and moonlight
are dead
And your face
is drowned
in the sea of dark
This night -

This night
is not a sitar
for me to string out
a sad song
This night
is not a mad lover
for me to go out
with a knife
and return soaked
in the blood
of my dreams.

Yet Megha,
I prayed
for a sunflower
in your love filled eyes
I waited for an ascent
in your music rich breath
I claimed for a lantern post
in your distant dream lands
I longed for a scarlet
in your green shores of desire.
Yet Megha....

This night
is the revenge
echoing from the silence
This night
is the psalm
of the silent throes
of your rejection
This night
when the desire rains
I strive
the cold mountain gales
of instincts
I survive
as the eternal thirst
of the cross....

You never know
my hills and crosses
my midnight's desires
and dawn dejections
Yet Megha,
through the overcast horizon
of desolation
your soothing face reflects
on my plateaus
The face of this moonless night
fills my unrest
as your face.
Yet Megha
dreaming not of the green arcades
caressing not the moonlight
I stand in the darks.

Megha,
Like the crimson flower
bloomed only for me,
Like the monsoon desire
awaited only for me,
I meet you
Plodding
the lanes of cold and mud
and the streets of sloth and shame
the lonely traveller
meets you,
Mehga, the face I buries
beneath my dreams
The bread I kept
for the hunger
of this loveless night.

I sowed my joys
in the fields
never to be reaped
Yet, Megha...
when the flowers
of dreams
are withered
whom shall I wound
with the thorns remained?

When I walk away
blowing out
the fragrant glow
animating
my nights of love,
when I walk away
stamping on
the softness of moon light,
when I walk away
rejecting
the folds of affections,
Megha,
I won't forfeit
the un-bloomed flowers
of desire
before the shameful plea of life transcending love.

('Avasanathe Pranaya Kavitha', from Sthree Paksha Kavithakal, pp. 55-57, Green Books, Thrissur, 2011. Translated from the Malayalam by Harikrishnan.)