Classic Poem

I saw no one throughout the vast world who would be my patron
as I sat by the foot of a tree, resting there, hungry,
when I threaded a garland of blossoming flowers for myself
on a string and donned it to make my bright black hair
gleam. With me were my drum and my carrying bag
and I picked up my cooking pot, holding it in my hand with care,
since it was chipped at the mouth, and because I had no rice
I felt desire that overcame all my other desires for things
I must have while in the courtyard the shining margosa blossoms
were falling. I had pushed through difficult country, thinking of you,
of your good name, you who plow with the plowshare of your bow,
living in your camp of wide renown where your thundering drum
resounds . . . . attacking mercilessly, as great sharp-edged weapons
follow their whirling paths, arrows arrive. And I beating on the wide eye
of my tightly strapped tatari drum which resembles the moon
so that it quivers and playing my akuli drum, for the sake of a gift
with a spotted face and a massive wrinkled trunk and giant feet
like kettledrums, I have come to you, greatness! to the field
where headless corpses are stacked and to destroy those stacks,
elephants are the buffaloes, lifted swords the palmyra whips, so that
driven to the threshing, the elephants dismember the corpses!
Where a terrifying demoness, with teeth shining like a boar's tusks,
chews and relishes white fat mixed with flesh and weaves a garland
of intestines and wears it on her head and dances and sings,
“May he who gave us such profusion, to eat and stuff ourselves full,
live more years than the many stars shining in the sky!”—
that is your field, lord, where a dust of dried blood swirls!