I've been sick of this planet for over 30 years

From: "Speaking of Shiva", Translated by A.K. Ramanujuan (Penguin Classics, 1973)

1.

Look, the world, in a swell
of waves, is beating upon my face,*

Why should it rise to my heart,
tell me,
O tell me, why is it
rising now to my throat?
Lord,
how can I tell you anything
when it is risen high
over my head
lord lord
listen to my cries
O lord of the meeting rivers
listen.


2.

Why do I need this dummy
of a dying world?
illusion's chamberpot,
hasty passions' whorehouse
this crackpot
and leaky basement?

Finger may squeeze the fig
to feel it, yet not choose
to eat it.

Take me, flaws and all
O lord

white as jasmine.


3.

Shiva, you have no mercy.
Shiva, you have no heart.

Why why did you bring me to birth,
wretch in this world,
exile from the other?

Tell me, lord,
don't you have one more
little tree or plant
made just for me?


4.

Father, in my ignorance you brought me
through mothers' wombs,
through unlikely worlds.

Was it wrong just to be born,
O lord?

Have mercy on me for being born
once before
I give you my word,
lord of the meeting rivers,
never to be born again.


5.

I added day by day
a digit of light
like the moon.
the python-world,
omnivorous Rahu,
devoured me.

Today my body is in eclipse.
When is the release,
O lord of the meeting rivers?



* The word is Samsarasagara, the world as a raging tempest.
1. Basavanna, Vacana 8, pg. 49
2. Mahadeviyakka, Vacana 251 - pg. 115
3. Basavanna, Vacana 64, pg. 53
4. Basavanna, Vacana 21, pg. 50
5. Basavanna, Vacana 9, pg. 49