Lesefrucht:

Amaru, Indien um 500 u.Z.

Not all of Sanskrit poetry, unfortunately, is fit copy for Delhi’s forthcoming underground: A poem by Amaru, for instance, is destined to stay within the confines of discreet book covers:

Held her
Tight to me
breasts pressed flat
all of her skin
reached
and with wanting alone
her clothes by themselves fell down
her legs No
don’t Oh
god don’t
too much oh
yes
she was saying I
could hardly hear her
after that did she
fall asleep did she die
did she vanish into me
did she totally dissolve
into me

(translated by W.S. Merwin and J.M. Masson in A Treasury of Sanskrit Poetry). / Outlook India 29.7.02