Travelogues of a bachelor

Orpheus, I am not listening to your music:
Gypsies are coming home to caravan;

Orpheus, I am not lingering at your riverside:
A newlywed bride is shedding her clothes now;

Orpheus, I am not sleeping under the foot of your tree:
Strangers are there in embrace at their rendezvous;

Orpheus, let the moonlight borrow your flute:
You and I, Orpheus - Let's walk under the shadow.

* * *

This night is the traveller's harp
This ambrosia, his gashes
This journey to a hill, his message
This rain descending a hill, his heirloom
This lover too is walking away all alone.

* * *

I am at the open ground for migrants
laying on my back,
watching stars and pyramids of clouds.

No gold ring in my finger
No chariot to join the suitors
No sage egging me on to wind up a bow
No bride and her maid waiting on.

I remember a song
I heard somewhere yesterday.
The river's anklets woke up
listening to a gypsy's flute.
An aroma knots up a swing
across the river and a star.

I woke up -
A band of old folks huddled around a fire
at the open ground for migrants.
Warming up in their good ole stories were-
Nalla Thanka, Dhamayanthi and Ophelia,
A brand new Arabian tale mounted a chariot.

Translated from D. Vinayachandran's poem "Oru Avivaahithante Sanchaarakurippukal"