Ashok Mehta
(Translated from Maithili by Ayodhyanath Choudhary)
————————
Seeing you sit silently,
my eyes
got stuck, looking
at your countenance.
Eyes lined with soot
inside them
rested a waiting
a desire too
As I had eyed that moment.
The slow-trembling lips
a smiling rose above them
the inner part of the left lip
pressed under your teeth
were all I could see at the moment.
I guessed that
with my arrival
your cheeks and forehead
had perspired scantily
as if some tiny drops had fallen
on a lotus leaf.
I had wished
the lids of your eyes
which were lowering
like peepal leaves
remained suspended up there
for a moment
and I felt like
I was standing near a mirror.
*