Black was the sun, black the light of the moon,
black was their flooding radiance on the night
I was born. Now here I am, in this city of yours,
a place as bewitching as the celestial Tilottoma.
I am the blood brother of a deity who is a figment.
There are bells on his ankles and piety in his heart.
Whitened is his face. I wanted to go to a place where
river water is as clear as it is in the shade of a tree.
I wanted to go as His associate. I learned
how intimately one confides in the Lord, in the smoke
of the redolent room in which I was born.
Before He left, He tied bells around my ankles too
and now,
though outwardly I appear to be the same,
inwardly I am growing into very much my own me.