Daridro or Poverty

POVERTY

Poverty, you’ve empowered me,
Endowed me with Christ’s dignity
And adorned me with a thorny crown,
Ascetic one, you’ve inspired me
To speak out and eye the world boldly 
Deliver messages as incisively as a knife;
Your curse has made my veena a sword!

Arrogant hermit, your scorching flame
Has shorn my golden visage of its glitter,
Shrinking its sap and drying the soul early, 
When I try grasping with emaciated hands
Beauty’s bounty, O Impoverished One,
You step forward and lap it up. 
A forlorn desert is all you leave
For my imagination to play with.
My eyes blaze at my own beauty!

My desires, tinged with pain-yellow buds,
Would rather bloom like the soft, white,
Fragrant shefali flower.  But Cruel One,
Like an unfeeling woodcutter, you break
All branches and destroy all blossoms,
My heart glistens like an autumnal dawn, 
Wet with dew shed by sympathetic earth.
 
You are the sun -- your heat dries up
Every dewdrop of pity. I shrink
Inside the shade that earth affords.
Dreams of Beauty and the Good shatter. 
Pouring liquid poison down the throat
You ask, “What good is nectar now?
There is no parching sensation,
No intoxication, no madness.
Weakling that you are, not for you
To seek manna from heaven
In this sorrow-laden world!
You are a serpent, in birth singed
By pain! In a thorny garden you weave
Garlands. On your forehead
I leave this mark of woe!”


I sing songs, weave garlands, and feel my throat burn,
Snakebites have left their marks all over my body!

Like unforgiving Durbasha*, you wander
From door to door with a beggar’s bowl.
Even as newlywed couples embark
On their night of Happiness, you cry out:
“Dumb ones, Listen: this world
Is no bower of bliss but full of sorrow,
Of want and the pangs of parting,
Of thorns that underlie bridal beds
And are embedded even in the Beloved’s arms,
Take your fill of them now!”
Instantly, cries of anguish overwhelm,
In that bower of bliss light fades,
And dreadful night overwhelms!

Exhausted, worn out by hunger, you peer,
Surveying earth with knotted eyebrows
When, suddenly, something strikes you,
And your eyes dart out fiercely.
Whole kingdoms are devastated then
By Plagues, Famines, and Cyclones,
Pleasure Gardens burn, palaces topple—
The only verdict you know is death!

You never stoop to modest displays,
But revel in revealing yourself naked.
You know no hesitation or shame
But raise the heads of those bent low.
At your wish, people condemned to die
Tie nooses around their neck gladly.
Despite burning in the fire of penury daily
They embrace death with devilish glee.

From goddess Lakshmi’s head you snatch 
Her crown and throw it to the dust.
O Champion, what tune do you strum 
So deftly on your veena? All I hear is lamentation!

Yesterday morning I heard the shehnai wail
A melancholy note, as if a dear one
Hadn’t returned home yet. The shehnai
Seemed to cry out to him to come back.
Some bride’s heart wafted away with the tune
As if searching for her beloved.
Her friends wondered why she should cry,
And let her kohl dissolve with her tears....

Even this morning I woke up to hear
The shehnai call plaintively: “come, come”
Sad-faced, shefalika flowers drop off—
Like a widow whose smile keeps fading—
Their delicate fragrances overwhelm
Butterflies fluttering on restless wings,
Intoxicated with the scent of flowers
They kissed! Bees yellow their wings 
With pollen and wet their bodies with honey.

My soul overflows in all directions!
Unconsciously I sing out welcoming songs
Happily! My eyes fill with tears unaccountably
Someone seems to tie the knot,
Uniting me with earth. With hands full of flowers,
Earth appears to step forward with its bounty.
It is as if she is my youngest daughter!
I wake up suddenly in wonder! Alas, my child
Has been up all night and is crying in my home,
Famished and hands full of soot.  O Cruel One,
You’ve brought perpetual tears to my home!
I haven’t been able to give my dear child,
My loved one, a drop of milk! 

Familial duty is no delight! Poverty is intolerable,
As it cries endlessly as one’s son or wife
Clasping one’s door! Who will play the flute?
Where will one get radiant smiles of bliss?
Where will one taste a rich bouquet of wine? 
Rather swallow a glass of the poisonous dhutura
To make the tears flow....

Till this day I hear the shehnai’s overture wailing
Seemingly saying: nothing, nothing has survived!

*Durbasha: A legendary rishi who was revered but was rather hot tempered