A raga of another time, from another day,
plays in the head:
grime of the day, stuck on my hands.
You shot an arrow across the eastern skies.
Senora, a hundred cries you carry
in your womb, yet I never
found you in the peasant woman
in whose arms I fell asleep, when
at noon you disappear at the horizon.
Maiden of the moons, at dusk I lost you
to the trail of lotuses blooming westward.
It is raining in gusts but this storm
cannot wash it away:
Guilt, like turmeric, stains the soul.
A raga is a mode in Indian classical music and different modes are sung at specific times. So a morning mode that plays on in the head late at night, arouses a sense of nostalgia...!
