YOU, AS SCARCE AS WATER

I see you becoming
as scarce for me as water

Too scarce for the roots of my crop
Too scarce for my birds to bathe in
Too scarce for my thirsting traveller
Too scarce for my dough-kneading woman
My ox arrives at your lake
and looks around with desolate eyes

I see all of this in your demeanour

I see you becoming scarce for me
the way water becomes more and more scarce

And like drought stricken land
I cannot even ask
Why is this happening?
Water, why are you doing this to me?

When there is no water
who can the river speak to?
Like that river I too
am in communion with myself

And like the weed
spreading far across the dry riverbed
somewhere in me there is still
the green memory of you

TRANSLATED FROM THE HINDI BY RAHUL SONI