It rained the whole of last night, dearest.
The banyan tree beyond my window
swished and swayed in the storm.

How bleak the wet luminance of my wait!
No streetlamp blinked
on the riddle of your returning trail
over the desolate stretches of the night.

My eyes stood sentinel,
the whole night, dearest,
for the faraway flicker of your torch
hurrying home...
Only fireflies wheeled lost and hopeless in the gale.

And there was lightning too, dearest—
white stallions carting the chariot of faceless shadows
down the valley of my gloom. 
My-heart-leapt-at-each-thunderclap...
Did I hear,
muffled in its rumble,
your fumble at the gate,
knock at the door?

1.
Then comes the day when
I on a clay-tiled floor lie spread-eagled,
a box of chess pieces toppled over the checkerboard,
wracked by phenomenal indecisions--
should it be the rook, the bishop, the pawn?
Oh from all directions checkmated!

2.
And at sunset,
when the birds on tired wings fly to roost
and the whole earth is suffused in a golden glow,
a door opens
at the far end of a dark corridor.
Light skids down the floor,
like skaters sliding down a silent *****.
Words vanish to open a void...
The strains of a poem
trip lightly in!

3.
Was it long ago, or just  yesterday?—
In a flickering moment of revelation,
when the distant lighthouse swung its beam
past my windless sail,
did I quiver?
Like this, did I quiver?
Was it the chill on the open seas?
Or, was it
your soft tread on my cabin floor?
Do I remember? Don’t I remember?...

4.
At your touch
I turn a bubble,
a bubble,
balanced on the tip of a thorn,
On this windless evening!