The house is dark,
the mats laid out upon
the moat-like floor;
a scent of ratri-rani
floats upon the air,
and all the world’s
enfolded into sleep,
or into earth’s repair.

How vaguely stars
scout out the night
that hoods the city
in a grief of clouds;
how dimly glows the
moon’s curved wick,
its lamp unit,
yet pooled in oil.

Now, only lovers stir
beneath a wavering sky.
Each turns to each
with golden cries,
their mortal bodies
rising up then falling
back into a shrine
of tangled hair.

So love illumines us
like windows sprung
by swarms of fireflies;
and each soul’s light
briefly flickers on and
off until the darkened self
rises aloft the stairways
of night, and disappears.